Arranged Disaster
by SazzyJacks
Summary: Sakura returns home one night after a mission to find that her parents have arranged the rest of her life for her. Now she has to decide if she wants to love him or not, but more importantly will he love her back? Non-massacre, please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

I sighed as I walked into my apartment after a long haul mission. I stripped before entering the shower. It was cold for a moment before warming up. The water was good for my sore muscles; I had once again pushed my muscles to their limit.

Once I had changed into my nightwear, a white tank top and pink shorts, I checked the answering machine for any messages. There was only one. I pressed the play button and listened to the tones of my father.

"Sakura, I know that you are most likely on a mission at the moment, but . . . we need to talk as soon as possible. It is about a very important issue, to do with your future. Give me a ring when you get this message, I don't care how late it is. Um, hope to hear from you soon Pumpkin." The message then ended.

I dialled my parents' number, knowing that I should get this over with now. It rang a couple of times before being picked up. "Hello?" My mother's voice asked from the other end.

"Hi, it's me. I got the message. What's going on?" I asked interested in what was going on now.

"Um, I'd better put your father on the phone." She said passing the phone to someone, presumably my dad.

"Hey Pumpkin, you just got in from a mission?" he asked.

"Dad don't call me that, you know I don't like it." He chuckled at my response to his nickname for me. "Yeah I just got back in from a mission. Dad what's all this important stuff to do with my future that you need to discuss with me?" I asked getting straight to the point.

He sighed before replying. "Well I'm afraid that there isn't really anything to discuss, it's more to inform you of what's happening." Okay now I was really confused. "Sakura, now that you're 21 we think that it might be time for you to settle down in life a bit."

"What are you saying dad?" I asked, getting an inkling of what he wanted.

"We want you to get married, have some children. We're getting older, and so are you, you may not have long left, what with your line of work."

"Dad you know very well that there isn't anyone in my life at the moment, and probably not in the foreseeable future . . ." He then cut my off from whatever else I was going to say.

"Sakura, I'm not asking you to get a move on with life. I'm telling you that you must. We have arranged a marriage for you, and there will be no arguing. It is what we have decided for you. The family came to us and asked, we accepted."

"AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE?" I shouted down the phone. "I'm a powerful konoichi of this village. How can you expect me to marry a civilian?"

"No not a civilian." He said, cutting me off again. "He is a very respectable shinobi from this village. We shall talk about this more in the morning. I expect you to be here by 11:30am we shall discuss it in further detail then." There was a short pause. "Goodnight Sakura." He said before hanging up the phone.

I sighed and decided to try and sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.

**OOO**

I knocked on the door to my parents' house. I was only a minute late, due to waking up at 11:15. The door opened to reveal my mum. She hugged me before pulling me in towards the kitchen table. Seems like we were going to have a proper family conference, for once.

My mum sat next to my dad, I sat opposite both of them. "Just to make it clear, I'm not going to go through with the arranged marriage. I want to find love by myself, with whom I want, and when I want."

My father sighed. "I'm afraid that will not be possible. There is no way you can get out of this. You are to meet your future husband for lunch now. Get ready, we are taking you over to his family's house now." With that said him and my mother rose expectantly. I sighed before getting up from my chair and following them.

It wasn't long before a familiar building loomed before me. The Uchiha manor. "Ah Fugaku-sama, Mikoto-san." My father bowed in a respectful greeting, my mother and I followed his example out of respect.

"Sakura-Chan, it's wonderful to see you. We hope you and Itachi-Kun will get on very well." Mikoto-San greeted me, before ushering us all inside. "So Sakura-Chan, how do you feel about being married to Itachi-Kun?" She asked me as we walked towards the dining room.

"Um, I'm not sure. I've only just found out today." I replied honestly. Although I've never really liked Itachi, he was always emotionless and stuck up every time I met him. She nodded back to me as though this was something very normal, which in my opinion it wasn't.

As we sat down at the dining table Itachi walked into the room, looking like the self imposed prick he was. Of course he sat next to me, since we are sort of engaged now.  
>"Where is Sasuke-Kun?" I asked, even though I knew he was currently on a mission, just to break the silence.<p>

"I am afraid he is away on a mission at the moment." Fugaku answered. The table fell silent again.

"When will the wedding date be?" My mother asked. I snapped.

"Doesn't anyone want to take my opinion into consideration? I never asked for this!" I stood up. "I'm going to take this to the Hokage."

"The Hokage has already been informed of this arrangement and has deemed it to be acceptable." Fugaku commented. I deflated slightly at that.

"Gomenasi for my behaviour. May I be excused?" I fled without even waiting for an answer.

**OOO**

I had fled down to one of the training grounds, and was now in the process of obliterating it. "Sakura!" I heard my name being shouted by my Shishou. I wasn't about to stop my destruction for her. I heard my name again. This time I stopped and just fell to the floor in a crying heap. "I'm sorry Sakura, I'm afraid that there was nothing I could do to stop it." She comforted me as I cried even harder into her shoulder.

Somehow we ended up back in her office, where good sake was produced. We drank for a while, comforting me from my recent news.


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: **__I know that the start is a little slow but the action will kick in soon. And I may have gotten carried away with the dresses..._

**Chapter 2**

I was currently sitting in Ichiraku's sitting in-between Naruto and Sasuke, to refrain them from beating each other up. It had been a week since I had found out about my engagement to Itachi.

"Sakura-chan is something wrong? You look a bit down." Sasuke mentioned as we got our food.

"You mean you haven't heard yet?" I asked in disbelief, I thought Mikoto would have told him at the first chance she had. He gave me a questioning look just as Kakashi entered the small restaurant, late as usual.

"Yo. Sakura-chan, congratulations . . ." I gave him a glare, daring him to finish off that sentence.

"Sakura-chan what's going on?" Sasuke asked me. I shook my head, telling him not here. "Fine, can we go back to yours then Sakura-chan?" He asked. I nodded.

We both got up to leave and split the bill between the both of us. "Nani? Where are you going?" Naruto asked looking up from his bowl, completely oblivious to the conversation which had just taken place.

"We're all going back to my place, are you coming?" I explained. He nodded before gulping down the contents of his bowl and following us back to my apartment.

Once we were all settled around the table with a cup of green tea, only then did I start to talk. "You probably ought to know about this, since word is already starting to spread around the village anyway, better you hear from me now, than someone else later." I sighed, pausing before telling them. "I'm . . . I'm engaged to Itachi." I spat the words out quickly dreading their reaction. There was a deadly silence around the table.

"Sakura-chan, stop joking around with us! You can't be engaged to anyone, nobody would take you." I gave him a death glare.

"I'm going to let that comment slide. I'm not joking either." I said before allowing one tear to slip down my face.

"The Hokage told me to keep an eye on you, that you hadn't taken it well." Kakashi said wiping the tear from my face, now knowing how true the comment now was.

"My parents went behind my back and arranged it for me. It wasn't what I wanted, I don't know if I'm ready for it." Sasuke had been quiet for the entire conversation. I needed to know what his thoughts on this were this, since he was going to be my brother-in-law. "I don't understand why you didn't know Sasuke-kun?" I questioned him.

"Only my mother would have told me something like this, but she hasn't been around, and now I know why." He stood up and walked over to me, He placed a hand on my shoulder, showing all the affection he could. "I'm so sorry; this is probably all my parents fault." I placed my hand over his, showing that I appreciated his efforts to comfort me.

The phone then rang. "Hello?" I asked after I picked it up.

"Sakura," It was my mother. "You are needed to help choose some of the wedding arrangements."

I sighed before replying. "What type of things?" I asked, not really wanting to be too heavily involved in the wedding preparations.

"Oh just to approve some of our choices, and to say who you would like to be your bridesmaids, maybe go and try a few dresses on." She mentioned casually.

"When and where do you want to meet?" I asked, resigning myself to my mother's antics.

"Could you make your way over to the Uchiha compound now?" She said with a hint of happiness in her voice.

I sighed, yet again. "Yeah, I'll be there in five minutes."

"Oh that would be wonderful Sakura. Oh if you see Sasuke-kun could you bring him with you? Mikoto wants to speak with him."

"Yeah I will, see you soon." I then put down the phone, and turned to the others. "I need to go help with stupid wedding arrangements. I'll have to take a rain check. Sasuke, your mother wants to see you."

**OOO**

When we arrived at the Uchiha manor, we walked straight inside. "Mum?" Sasuke shouted.

"In the kitchen dear." She replied. We walked into the kitchen to find both of our mothers pouring over plans for this wedding they were planning, and it looked like they were going all out for it, completely the opposite of what I would have wanted. "Sakura-chan it's so lovely to see you again."

"And you too Mikoto-san." I replied.

"Now dear, I'm about to become your mother-in-law there is no more need for any formality, just call me Mikoto." I nodded with a smile, to show that I understood what she was saying. "Sasuke, your father and brother are in your father's study, go and see them would you?" Sasuke nodded and then left for a different part of the house.

"Sakura, come over and see these plans which we have made." My mum stated excitedly as Sasuke left the room. "The colour scheme we have decided on is red, pink and white, combining the Haruno and Uchiha colours. So what do you think?" She asked me. I didn't really have an opinion so just agreed with it.

"For flower arrangements we were thinking about getting twigs of Sakura blossoms and red roses, do you think the Yamanaka flower shop would be able to do that for us?" Mikoto asked.

"Um I think so, but we had better ask to make sure." I said in response.

"Right, thank you for that. We were thinking about having the wedding in May, when the sakura trees are blossoming, and the weather will be good." That was about four months from now.

"That sounds nice." I said with a forced smile, I was no way near ready for the wedding, period, never mind in four months time.

"Now Sakura you need to choose two bridesmaids, we will then pick them up for your appointment in fifteen minutes." My mum explained.

"Wait what appointment?" I asked.

"The appointment to choose your wedding dress, of course." She stated simply. I suddenly paled at the thought. "So who are your bridesmaids going to be?"

I thought quickly about this, there were really only two people who could fill this role. "Ino Yamanaka and Hinata Hyuga."

**OOO**

We picked up Hinata first, who agreed after a few moments of deliberation. Ino agreed instantly, I had known that if I hadn't asked her she would have killed me. My mum, Ino and Mikoto were avidly chatting about the flower arrangements for the wedding, while Hinata sat quietly beside them, she would take a few pictures of me wearing the dresses so that we could compare them again afterwards.

I was currently trying on the first of the many white dresses they had picked out for me. The dress was called Sleeping beauty. The bodice material looked like it had been wrapped around me and one thick strap had a large white rose, the skirt was large and fluffy. This made it an instant 'no' in my book, Ino and my mother protested, but I knew that I had the final say.

The next dress was called Ariel. It was a close fitting dress which had a complicated zigzag pattern of sequins and beads and flared out at the bottom, almost making me look like a mermaid. The dress however made me look like a straight twig and I couldn't walk in it, meaning it also went onto the 'no' rack. The others all silently agreed with me.

The third dress was called Belle. The bodice of the dress had a really nice embroidery pattern of sequins and beads with thick chiffon straps which hugged around my arms. The skirt was big and was again made of chiffon in an almost wrap around style. This looked gorgeous on and went onto the yes/maybe rack.

Snow white was the name for the next dress. The bodice was covering in small flowers. The waistline was made dramatic with a simple ribbon which had a few flowers on it to one side. The skirt was nice and flowy with a few flower dotted around on it. This dress also looked very nice on me and went onto the yes/maybe rack.

The fifth and final dress was called Tiana. The top of the bodice was heart shaped and the material was pinched at one side. There was one strap which was covered in flowers and beads which carried on across the bodice of the dress. The waistline was also covered in flowers and beads. This also looked quite nice and also went onto the yes/maybe rack.

We then went over the pictures of the good dresses, comparing them. The first dress to be eliminated was the Tiana dress, and after much squabbling I was made to try the other two dresses on again. I had thought that the whole point of taking pictures of me in the dress was so that I wouldn't have to change back into them again, but of course that didn't go to plan.

After much deliberation we decided to go for the Belle dress, which I did have to admit was my favourite dress.

"So can I go home now?" I asked exhausted from trying on dresses all afternoon. The others all looked horrified at me, well except Hinata.

"Forehead what are you talking about? We have to get mine and Hinata's dresses now!" Ino exclaimed. I sighed and sat in a chair as I waited for them to bring out the many dresses they were sure to pick.

We managed to find a dress which fitted the colour schemes and looked pretty on both of them. The dress was strapless; red in colour, with black lace layered on top, black ribbon with a diamond broach to one side at the waistline and stopped mid calf.

"Can I go home now?" I asked just wanting to go and wallow in self pity.

"No we have to go and buy shoes and accessories now!" Ino stated. I groaned.

"Maybe we could get them when we are due for our fittings?" Hinata quietly suggested, even if it did sound a little like a question.

"I think Hinata's idea sounds good." Mikoto added. "Sakura does look a little tired right now, and we have about four months until the actual wedding." Ino looked a little miffed at this but agreed anyway, knowing that she would change her mind on accessories by then anyway.

We all then said our goodbyes before heading to our respective houses. I ran myself a bath, to try and de-stress me from today's troubles. It only half worked.

_**A/N:**__ if you would like to see pictures of the bridal dresses search "Alfred Angelo Disney" in Google. Click on 'Disney fairytale weddings - Alfred Angelo'_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

I was currently sitting in a little clearing in the forests which surrounds Konoha. I had to get out of there for a while, to a place where nobody could find me. I have been visiting the small clearing since I was a gennin, it was a place where I could relax and be completely myself, let out my real feelings.

There was only a month left till the wedding now. My life had consisted of wedding this and wedding that for the last few months. The way I had tried to cope with it was to take any and every mission that I could. Only now, Tsunade wouldn't give me anymore missions. I was on leave until further notice. So now with nothing to distract me I came to my little clearing to vent out my feelings. This included smashing up a couple of trees and rocks before collapsing and crying.

I was currently on the crying stage, curled up into a ball, back against a tree. Suddenly I heard some rustling in the trees nearby me. I managed to stop the sobs, but not the tears. "Who's there?" I called out into the trees. "Show yourself! I know that you're there." A figure then dropped down from the trees and stepped out into the light. "Sasuke." I said in disbelief "Wh . . . what are you doing here?" I asked, standing up and wiping away the tears.

"I could ask the same of you." He retorted. I slumped back down into my previous position, knowing that he was right. He slid down next to me. "So gonna tell me what's wrong?" I suddenly burst into tears again. After a moment he hesitantly put his arm around me, I leaned into him, crying onto his shirt.

After some length of time I managed to get a hold of myself. "I'm sorry. I just . . . I don't know if I can handle this wedding, whether I can go through with it." He then started stroking my hair and pulled me slightly closer. "I'm not ready for any marriage; I mean Naruto's right, what man would want me?"

"Sakura, you have to stop thinking like that. There are many men who would kill to be in Itachi's place right now." He said to comfort me.

I chuckled. "You're probably just saying that to comfort me, but thanks anyway."

"I'm not lying. Why would I lie to you?" he said slightly offended, taking his arm away in the process.

"How can you tell me something like that when you rejected me time and time again?" I said getting slightly angry now.

"I thought you were over me?" he asked, getting away from the point.

"I am over you." I said looking him straight in the eye. "And you're avoiding my question!" He then looked away from me.

"I have my own reasons for doing that." He muttered before standing up.

"What reasons? What reasons Sasuke?" I shouted before he could run away. He turned back to me and sighed.

"If I tell you this you must promise not to tell anyone else." I nodded in confused agreement. "Sakura, I was never interested in you or any other girl, because I'm Gay." The air was silent for a few minutes.

"Um wow. That must have taken guts to tell me. Okay, I guess I trust you a bit more." He gave me one of those Uchiha looks. "Before you were just a stuck up Uchiha, now you're a stuck up Uchiha with feelings." I explained.

"Thanks. Do you want me to try and get you out of this arranged marriage? Since it's caused you so much distress."

I shook my head. "No. I'll be fine, arranged marriages happen all the time. Please don't tell your family, I don't want to cause any trouble. I just came here to get out a few of my feelings is all." I pleaded with him.

"Alright I promise not to tell my family. So do you come here often?"

**OOO**

It was now only two weeks until the wedding. Team 7 had been invited to dinner at the Uchiha manor. I of course was sitting next to Itachi and Naruto while Sasuke sat next to his parents.

"So Sakura, are you looking forward to the wedding? It's only two weeks away now." Mikoto asked. My initial reaction was to say no way in hell, but I couldn't tell her that.

"Why would she be? She's been crying and trying to avoid everything to do with it! I think that nobody should be forced to marry someone that they don't want to." Naruto answered for me.

There was a moment of silence. "It is called an arranged marriage. It doesn't matter what the participants think or feel about it." Fugaku said, breaking the silence. "I think that this dinner has come to an end now." He stated, standing up to leave. The rest of us followed suit.

"Sasuke may I have a word with you?" I asked as we started to leave. He looked at me before nodding, his eyes held a hint of sadness. He led me to a slightly more private area of the house, however Naruto tried to follow. "Naruto, I think you've done enough damage for the night, go home." I told him. I knew I was a bit harsh, but I was upset and angry at the moment. He seemed to understand and turned back to go to his apartment.

"I'm sorry Sakura. This is all my fault." Sasuke stated, once Naruto had left.

"How could you? I trusted you with this! I told you not to tell anyone about my feelings." I scolded him.

"Actually you only told me not to tell my family." He corrected me.

"Yes and that also meant people who would blab to them by accident. You should have known that Naruto would be Naruto like." I informed him

"Actually I think he was just trying to protect you." He corrected me again. "And I forgot about that stuff when I told him. I just needed someone to confide in . . . and I seem to have lots of momentary lapses around him." He muttered quietly at the end, blushing slightly.

"Oh . . . OH." I suddenly realised the meaning of his words. "Since when?" I asked.

"You remember when we were all waiting for our Gennin teachers?" I nodded to him recollecting that day perfectly. "You remember when Naruto accidently kissed me?" he asked.

"How could I forget? I was outraged that he had stolen your first kiss instead of me." I said laughing.

"I think it started then." He told me quietly.

"That long?" I said in disbelief. "Wow. You managed to keep that secret well. I guess I can leave you off the hook for that one, I know what it's like to be hopelessly in love with someone who can never return your feelings, because they play for the other team." I teased him.

"Hey I confided in you because I could trust you, not so you could endlessly tease me about it." He retorted with.

"Hey you can't not expect me to not take advantage of something like that . . . brother." I said reminding him of our new found relationship. He gave me a glare before jumping on me and tickling me. "No . . . stop . . . please . . . stop!" I said breathless while he tortured me. I then tried to tickle him back to get him to stop, but that was to no avail.

"He is very ticklish on the backs of his knees." Said a deep, monotone voice. We immediately stopped our antics and stood back up.

"Aniki . . ." The voice had belonged to Itachi. "How much did you overhear?" Sasuke asked.

"Enough." He said cryptically, meaning he had probably overheard the whole conversation. "Otouto, Okaa-san would like to speak to you." Sasuke looked at me, unwilling to leave me alone with him. I motioned for him to go; I could handle myself, even with the Uchiha prodigy. I would have to learn how to anyway.

After another moment's hesitation Sasuke left us. Suddenly I felt very alone and scared in my fiancé's presence. "Um, I should probably get going." I said turning to leave.

"I would like to show you something first before you go." He half asked, half ordered.

"Um, okay. I guess I could stay a little longer." I replied, intrigued as to what he wanted to show me. He walked out of the house, expecting me to follow, which I did.

He took me towards a secluded area of their gardens. There was a small loveseat on which he sat on and motioned for me to do the same beside him. "Sakura-san, I am sorry that my parents have forced you into this, although it is partially my fault. Just over four months ago, my parents came to me with a list and told me that I had to pick one of them to become my bride. The elders were sick of waiting for me to find someone, and so forced mine and my parents' hands. You were on the list which had been compiled by the elders. You were the only one that I could even consider to marry from the girls on the list, and so I chose you. I really am sorry for the pain this has caused you."

I blushed slightly. It seemed that Itachi really had a way with words. "You can just call me Sakura, and I guess it's alright. I just need to adjust to it is all."

"It is not alright Sakura-chan. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know this is hard for you, but . . ." He stood up and pulled something small out of a pocket and bent down on one knee. "Would you learn to love me?" I just sat there too shocked to say anything, or to even think of what my answer might me. "I want to be able to live in a marriage filled with some kind of love rather than a mutual agreement, forced by some old men." I sat there for another moment before bolting from my seat back to my apartment.

It was the only thing I could do. I didn't want to say no, because then I wasn't even going to give him a chance. But I also couldn't say yes, I knew that I may never be able to love him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

I woke up in my old bedroom in my parents' house. This was because my apartment was now empty; all my things had been moved to my new house in the Uchiha compound.

This was it. Today was the day I was to be married. I glanced to my bedside table. On it was a piece of paper addressed to me with a small ring placed on top. The ring Itachi had been going to give to me. The message on the paper read like this:

_Sakura,_

_I know that you have not given me an answer to my question yet,_

_however it would be better for appearances if you could wear the_

_ring just for today. I really am sorry for this._

_Itachi._

I knew that for appearances sake that I had to wear it, even if I had been trying to avoid Itachi for this very reason. The ring was a simple silver band with three small pink diamonds inlaid into it. The middle one was slightly larger than the others. It complemented me well. I sighed and slipped it onto my ring finger on my left hand.

At that moment Ino, my mother, and Hinata came bounding into my room, reminding me of the hen party a few nights ago. It had been a nightmare, well actually it was really nice, but I was the complete centre of attention, which was what I didn't like. The hen party consisted of me, Ino, Hinata, Tenten, Temari, Tsunade, Shizune, my mother and Mikoto. It was a big girly slumber party, with lots of sake, thanks to Tsunade.

Ino and my mother were getting me ready while Hinata helped where she could. Once I was ready they then prepared themselves, before rushing me into the carriage, along with my dad.

**OOO**

Most of the service had been a blur for me, I only just managed to say 'I do' at the right time. The kiss had been a small but firm peck on the lips. We were currently at the reception which was being held in the large gardens at the Uchiha compound. I was pretty sure that the whole village had turned up for this wedding and some people from other villages.

There was food and alcohol, dancing and talking, speeches and laughing. The whole time Itachi had his arm around my waist, and I had a fake smile plastered to my face, to the point where my face was beginning to hurt.

"Would you like to escape now, before some incident happens, or later after the first one happens?" Itachi whispered into my ear after several hours. I gave him a questioning look. "I know my family too well, once they get plastered they can start to get a little rowdy."

I sighed allowing my face muscles to rest for a few seconds. "Now would be quite nice, if we were able to slip away quietly." I mentioned.

He nodded before speaking again. "We shall say goodbye to the appropriate people, before changing into ninja attire and slip away like the couple of shinobi we are."

First we went to find Sasuke; apparently the brothers were closer than they let on. It seemed to be forever before we found him, and we knew why when we saw what he was up to. He and Naruto had found a nice secluded spot, and he was currently pinning Naruto against the wall in a heated kiss. We decided to leave them to it.

We moved onto finding Tsunade, who was already plastered, even if she didn't show it, and was gambling with some ninja from both Konoha and Suna. This meant that the conversation was fairly quick. "Shishou, we are going to leave now, and will inform you of when we arrive back in the village."

"Sakura, make sure you send me regular updates, just so we know that you're okay." I nodded before hugging her.

The next and final people were our parents, this was made easier by the fact that they were currently talking to each other. "Mother, father, Mr and Mrs Haruno, we shall be taking our leave now." Itachi informed them.

"Oh so quickly? Are you sure you don't want to stay any longer?" Mikoto asked. Itachi just shook his head in response to her questions. "Alright then. Remember to send messages regularly, and look after her." She scolded him like a small boy going away for the first time. Mikoto gave us both a hug as did my mother, asking the same as Mikoto and Tsunade. While my dad gave me a hug, Itachi's gave him a pat on the back, with a few words swapped.

After the exchange had taken place we hurried to the Uchiha mansion, and quickly changed into our shinobi attire. Picking up our luggage we disappeared into the night.

I followed closely behind him as I didn't know where we were going. Suddenly all of today's events caught up on me and a few tears escaped my eyes as I tried to hold back the sobs.

**OOO**

We travelled hard through the night and through most of the next day as well, only stopping occasionally for food and short rests. We arrived at an inn taking our first large break for the first time after leaving Konoha for our honeymoon.

I gave a look of disgust at the place we were staying in. The inn was actually quite nice, but not what I would call honeymoon material, and I was sure that the mighty Uchiha's could spend out more than this.

Itachi had seen this look and spoke to me. "This is not our final destination; we will only be staying here for one night." He then led me to our room.

It was only when I walked into the room and saw the double bed, that I realised we would have to share a bed, and that there was a very real possibility that I would lose my virginity tonight. Suddenly the new rings on my finger felt very heavy.

"When will we arrive at our destination?" I asked trying to distract myself from thinking about it too much.

I nodded to his response, not really hearing what he had just told me. I then slipped into the bathroom to examine what Ino had packed for me. Inside my pack was a bunch of scrolls kindly labelled so I knew which scroll contained what. I was intrigued to know what clothes she had chosen for me, but decided that I could look at them later. There were many scrolls which contained female essentials. I found a scroll which was unmarked, this peaked my curiosity. I laid the scroll out and completed the hand symbols to retrieve the objects stored inside. I screamed when I saw the contents of the scroll, making Itachi storm into the room. I blushed instantly as his eyes found several large boxes of condoms on the floor. "I'm going to kill Ino." I grumbled under my breath as I hastily put the boxes back into the scroll.

He chuckled. "I guess that this Ino you want to kill packed your bag. My mother did the same as Ino. Although instead of condoms I got lots of Viagra. I think she's expecting Grandchildren by the end of this." I paled at the thought. It wasn't that I didn't want children; it was just that I didn't want them now. He then walked back into the bedroom.

I then found the scroll labelled 'nightwear'. Every single piece was skimpy and revealing, some of them see-through, there was even just some 'sexy underwear', probably to go with the see-through pieces, then again they might not, knowing Ino. I really was going to kill her when I got back. I picked the least revealing of the lot, although it was still skimpy. It was a very short, very low-cut, black nighty made from silk. It clung to my curves and did look quite nice. But I was still nervous about wearing it in bed with Itachi.

After a moment I stepped back into the bedroom dropping my bag somewhere in the room. Itachi raised his head when he heard me enter, his face showed no emotion, except from in the eyes as they made their lustful approving sweep of me. This made me blush again.

I studied him as I slowly walked over to the bed. He was already sitting in the bed, topless with his hair down, and reading a book. My brain registered this as the sexiest sight ever.

I climbed into the bed with him, and lay down turning my back to him. After a few minutes he shifted, presumably putting his book down, before turning off the lamp. He then lay down with me and put an arm around my waist. I felt his lips touch my head in a small kiss. "Goodnight Sakura-chan." He murmured to me.

"Night Itachi-sama." I murmured back.

"Please call me Itachi." He corrected me.

"I shall settle for Itachi-kun then." Those were the last words spoken between us before we fell asleep for the night.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

I woke to the sound of the shower and an empty bed. The running water then stopped and the bathroom door opened. Itachi stepped out wearing nothing but a small towel around his waist. My eyes popped out of my skull. He was very well built, lovely defined muscles and he had a six pack. He looked over to me and I realised that I had been staring at him, I moved my gaze elsewhere.

"You can look. I have nothing to be ashamed of and we are now married, we're supposed to." He was completely right with everything he said but I still felt a little uncomfortable. To get rid of the awkwardness I got up to have my own shower, grabbing my pack on the way.

After the shower, which made me feel much better, I deliberated on which clothes to wear. I knew that we would be running again, probably for most of the day. I finally decided to not unpack anything and put on my ninja clothes from yesterday.

When I walked out of the bathroom, Itachi was dressed and sitting in front of a plate of food. I sat down by the other plate and started to eat, knowing that I would need the energy. "How long will we be running today Itachi-kun?" I asked him to break the silence.

"Depends on the pace we set, but we should arrive at our destination mid-afternoon." He replied.

"May I ask where we are going?" I asked, trying to make conversation.

"We are going to one of the Uchiha holiday homes, near tea country." He explained. "We shall not be running as hard as yesterday. I am sorry about the travel arrangements, but I thought that you might prefer this than sitting on a train." He apologised.

"It's nice to get a train ride every now and then, but your right this way I feel more comfortable." I commented.

"Sakura I have something which I must give to you." I looked up to him questioningly. He reached around his neck and removed the necklace he always wore. He then walked around behind me and put it around my neck.

"Why are you giving me this?" I asked him.

"It is an old family heirloom, given as a present to the Uchiha matriarch, it claims you as mine. It is an old family tradition." He explained to me. I suddenly felt a little uncomfortable, again. I wasn't used to receiving gifts, especially not old family heirlooms. "Now we can set off for the last part of our journey." He said walking out of the room, pausing to allow me to follow behind.

**OOO**

At around 3:00pm my legs started to hurt from the treatment they had received in the last two days. Itachi noticed that I was lagging a little and slowed down the pace for me. "We are nearly there; we should arrive in the next five minutes." He told me.

"What will we do when we get there?" I asked, he seemed to be more conversational now.

"We can relax for the rest of today. Tomorrow we can go into the nearest village, if you would like that?" He gave a few suggestions.

"That would be nice. My legs need to rest a little anyway." I smiled at his thoughtfulness.

"We have a bath house which you can use to soak your muscles if necessary." He commented. "Stop here." He said, also stopping. I stopped and walked back over to him, questioning his motives. "I want you to walk and get the full effect of the clearing." He explained.

"Ok, where's the blindfold?" I asked, joking with him. He chuckled, seemingly getting the joke, before walking towards the 'clearing'. "So you do have a sense of humour." I exclaimed.

"Of course I do. I am just professional when on duty, most people perceive this to mean that I have none." He said, explaining his everyday actions. Now I was laughing.

We then pushed our way through some trees before entering a clearing. It was beautiful. There was a cascading waterfall with a pool at the bottom and a river leading away with a bridge crossing it. On the side of it was a large hut, well it was too beautiful to be called a hut, a wooden house would be a more apt description. The scene was stunning.

"It's a nice place isn't it?" He asked me steering me towards the house.

"Yeah, this place is amazing." I commented, trying to take it all in. "I never knew you owned a place like this."

"Technically my father owns it, but we can use it whenever we want to now." He told me. "Upstairs are all the bedrooms, all with small bathrooms. Downstairs has a library, games room, lounge, a kitchen and a dining room. The bath house is that building to the side." He explained the layout of the house.

"How many bedrooms are there?" I asked as we took our boots off in the hallway. Itachi then led me up the stairs.

"There are five rooms in total. We will be using the large master bedroom, unless you would like your own space?" He asked me, being considerate for the hundredth time since this whole thing began.

"No I will be fine with sharing, after all we are married now, we're supposed to." I replied, repeating his words from this morning. He nodded and led me to the room at the end of the corridor.

It was the largest room and held a King-sized bed in the middle with two wardrobes and a small dresser with a mirror. In the corner was a beautiful dressing screen painted with a Sakura blossom tree and a few birds. The room was decorated with different shades of red and black. I dropped my pack on the floor and ran to the bathroom. It was basic, in shades of blue. There was a small Jacuzzi, a large shower, and a toilet and sink with a large mirror.

"So what do you think?" Itachi's voice asked me from behind, making me jump. "Sorry I didn't mean to scare you." He apologised.

"The room's beautiful; I suppose I wouldn't expect less from the mighty Uchiha." I replied once I had gotten over my shock.

"Yes, we Uchiha have very high standards in every aspect of our lives." He said, holding up my chin. I guessed he meant that as a complement towards me. He looked like he was about to kiss me, I wasn't ready for this intimacy yet.

"You said that there was a bath house?" I said, breaking away from his hold as I moved towards my pack. He sighed before turning around. His face held a neutral expression, however his eyes still held some of the hurt.

"Would you like to bathe now?" He asked me. I only nodded in reply. I took out the things I needed and followed him out to the bath house. "Take as long as you like. I will be back later." I nodded and let him leave without asking where he was going. I had still felt a little guilty about before. I could always ask him later anyway.

_A/N: I'm so happy that so many of you lovely readers like this story! And reviews make me very happy and write faster so I'm going to ask for 4 reviews before I next update! I know there are many readers out there!_


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N:**__ People were so enthusiastic about this story that I just had to update, especially since I now have all the reviews I requested! XD_

**Chapter 6**

Last night we had both been very quiet. Itachi had gone out to train a little and get some food for us. This morning he had been the Itachi everyone thought he was, the 'on duty' Itachi. It made me feel guilty.

We were currently travelling back from our day in the nearby village. It had been a very bad day out. Itachi had been a complete ass all day, preserving his stuck-up almighty Uchiha title. I knew it was my fault for pushing him away, but he still didn't have to sulk about it. He was just like Sasuke at times.

By the end of the day we had had a fight. Well I had shouted, he just gave non-committal grunts, frustrating me even more. Now we weren't speaking.

When we finally arrived I went straight up to our room collected my gear and went back out of the house to find the training field I knew was near-by. "Where are you going?" Itachi asked me as he caught me walking back out of the house.

"So I have to tell you where I go every minute of the day now, do I?" I shouted at him, still very angry. He was lucky that he hadn't had a fist through his head yet. "I'm just going to train and no, I do not want your help." I told him storming out. I found the training area quickly, there was a small pathway from the back of the house leading to the large cleared out space.

At one end of the clearing it looked like a small practice target area had been set up. I got out my kunai and started flinging them at the targets placed around. I hit the bull's-eye each and every time on each target. I collected the Kunai in and started the training again, except this time I was using senbon. Again each target was hit dead centre with each senbon. I only ever needed one to hit my target.

I moved on to my daily routine of practicing my chakra control. During my last exercise Itachi walked into the clearing. "Dinner is on the table. Would you care to join me?" He asked me. I finished the exercise before nodding.

"I'm sorry. I've not been a very good wife have I? I should be the one cooking, even if I can't cook." I said as I got up to join him on the way back to the house.

"I can teach you how to cook if you would like? And you havn't been an awful wife, just a new one learning how it all works. I've been trying to do the same, although I'm working on the husband look, not the wife." I laughed at his poor attempt of a joke.

"I would never try to make you the wife, even if you do look a little feminine and can cook." I joked, carrying on the joke a bit further.

"Say's the woman who's butch." That was one step too far.

"You had better start running Uchiha." I growled at him, pulling my fist back. He just stayed where he was and took the brunt of my punch.

"Thank you for proving my point for me." He said as rubbed the sore patch on his face.

"I'm not going to heal that for you." I said walking away.

**OOO**

By the next morning I had healed the bruise on his cheek. This was more necessary than something I wanted to do. We had spent the week visiting different towns and villages in the area. These trips had gone much better than the first one. We had been getting on much better since the first day here, although there was still a bit of tension between us.

We were currently having a relaxing day swimming in the large pool. "I bet I can make the biggest splash!" I challenged him, making a small splash.

"That was pathetic, this is a splash." He splashed back. His splash was much bigger, which was what I had planned. The splash war began.

All of a sudden his expression changed, he looked serious. He started to walk towards me with intent. I didn't know what his intent was and as he started to corner me against the side, it was becoming more obvious. I quickly dogged and splashed him again in an attempt to change the situation. Itachi just stood there, his muscles becoming tense. He then climbed out of the pool and headed back to the house.

"Itachi, where are you going?" He didn't reply. "Itachi?" Still no reply. I also got out of the pool and followed him. "Itachi! What's wrong?" This time he turned round to face me.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?" He repeated my questions. "We are married and you, you are not even trying to make it work!" He shouted at me.

"I am trying!" I shouted back. "I'm trying as best as I can. I never asked for this, I never wanted it." My voice started to break in the middle of the sentence. "I'm sorry but this is really hard for me." Tears started to escape. The expression on Itachi's face softened. He walked over to me and wrapped his arms around me. "I suppose we are going to have to compromise somewhere, aren't we." He suggested. I nodded into his shoulder no longer trusting my voice. My tears turned into sobs as I realised that he had always been good to me. I was the one who was being out of order. I didn't know how to put what I now felt into words, so I decided to show him. As they say 'actions speak louder than words'. I reached up and kissed him on the cheek. For a moment he froze before wrapping his arms even tighter around me. "Thank you." He whispered. We stood there for a few more minutes, just enjoying each other's embrace. "We should dry off and get something to eat. Would you like me to start teaching you how to cook?" He asked me.

"No, I feel a bit drained. Could we eat out tonight?" I suggested as we walked back into the house.

"That sounds like a good idea. I know the perfect place to take us. You'll need to dress in something classy." He told me.

_**A/N: **__No updates till I get 4 reviews again! And this time there are virtual Chocoholics Choice Cupcakes in the offer for all who review. A second to any who can guess where the reference is from, promises that McGee won't steel this one! XD_


	7. Chapter 7

****_**A/N: ** Sorry! I meant to update this earlier... Been very busy this weekend and ill... well enjoy! XD_

**Chapter 7**

It had been a month since our silent compromise had been made. There had been less tension between us since that night. I even allowed him to give me a small goodnight kiss each night before I would snuggle up closer to him. Most days were spent being lazy while others were spent out in the surrounding areas. Sometimes we would spar and Itachi had been teaching me how to cook. I was surprisingly good and actually made tasty edible food.

"I bet you've never been in this position before!" I exclaimed pinning him down.

"You are correct, although I think I could get used to this. A lot more fun." He said leaning up to steal a kiss.

"So do I win this round?" I asked. He nodded and I pulled us up from our position. A big smile exploded on my face. I had just beaten the great Itachi Uchiha in a sparring match.

"Let's see how good your taijitsu is. I have a feeling that you won't win this now that you can't use chakra." He suggested.

"Oh I can assure you that my taijitsu is up to scratch, after all my fighting style is a form of taijitsu." I taunted getting into my fighting pose.

He followed and immediately attacked. I went into the defensive, constantly looking for an opening to change the situation. He was good and didn't let one open for a while, once I found one I acted on it straight away. Now the fight was going in my favour.

He turned the tables again and this time I decided that I'd had enough. I was going to prove him wrong and beat him again. I would show him that being the heir to a great ninja clan wasn't everything to becoming a great shinobi.

I kicked under his legs, he of course jumped but I had him distracted for a second and that was all I needed to get on the offensive.

In no time at all I had him pinned against the ground again, kunai at his throat. "I think I win that round as well." I said with glee. He nodded conceding again.

"Where did you learn those moves?" He asked me.

"I got Lee to teach me some of his stuff. I then applied it to my own style." I replied as we started back towards the house to clean up.

"I knew there was a reason why I picked you over the others." He commented, reminding me that this whole mess was really his fault.

"So who else was on the list?" I asked cautiously.

"A few of the girls from within my clan, some civilian girls from rich families, Ino Yamanaka and Hana Inuzuka. I didn't want to marry someone within the clan for several reasons, ruling them all out. I didn't really want to marry some civilian, I need a strong woman. Hana is from the dog clan, loud and outlandish. And Ino seems to be very annoying from the few encounters I've had with her and from what my brother had told me about her. You were the last one left and from what I knew, you seemed to be a suitable candidate. I could think of no-one else who could compare with you." He told me, outlining his thought processes.

I stopped in my tracks. He hadn't chosen me because there had been some feelings there already; I had been chosen because I was the only candidate whom he deemed worthy. I knew that I should have taken his statement as a complement but for all I knew he was only being kind was so he could 'get in my pants' and start making Uchiha babies. "Do you have any actual feelings for me?" I asked him. He just looked at me confused. "Just answer the question." I demanded.

"Sakura . . . does that question really demand an answer?" He said stepping closer to me. He then pulled me into his embrace. He had avoided the question.

I broke from his embrace and quickly placed a binding jitsu on him. I ran.

Tears streamed down my face. I knew that he would break the jitsu quickly but I needed a head start. I had made a quick decision to run away from the man who had stolen my heart. I had begun to love him, yet he didn't love me back.

The extra water in my eyes made it hard to see and I wasn't using any of my other senses to look out for other things. I was distraught and didn't care if I got lost. I just needed to run.

Suddenly the ground disappeared from under me. There were four walls surrounding me. I had fallen into a trap hole, possibly meant for a small mammal. I couldn't climb back out, it was too deep and my leg was in agony, I feared it was broken.

I slipped off the ribbon I had been wearing to leave a trace of me before falling asleep due to physical and emotional exhaustion.

**OOO**

I woke to the sound of muffled voices. I was hanging off the shoulder of one of my captors, hands tied behind my back with chakra restraints. I strained my hearing to try and decipher what they were saying.

"Do you think leader will be pleased with our catch?" One of the voices asked.

"I'm sure he will; she's an exotic beauty. I only wish that I could sample her first." Another deeper voice replied. Had he meant what I thought he meant?

"Well why don't you Tsuyoshi? I'd join in with you, make it even more fun!" The first one exclaimed.

"No, leader would be able to tell and you know what happens to people who touch his property Saburo. If anything goes our way he'll refuse her, which means we can have her anytime and anyway we like." The second one explained.

"Ooh that sounds like a plan. How are we going to get him to refuse her?"

"We make her ugly." I didn't want to know what that entitled.

**OOO**

We had been travelling for four days and I was beginning to get sick of the two men.

"I will make the henge; he will be less likely to detect it." Tsuyoshi said as he put me down on the ground. I couldn't help the cry of pain which escaped. I was certain that my left leg was broken. "Shut up wench!" He shouted at me. "We're not that far from the camp." He informed me. "You will walk the rest of the distance." He told me.

"I can't." I said, speaking for the first time.

"I said that you _WILL_ walk the rest of the distance." He commanded this time.

"And I said that I _CAN NOT_ walk. My leg's broken." A smug smile crept on my face as I sort of defied him.

"Fine." He said picking me up roughly and putting me back over his shoulder.

It took us about five minutes to reach the camp and another five minutes to reach our destination within. This place was huge, how on earth did it not flag up any suspicions within Konoha?

I was roughly dropped onto the floor once again. I just hoped that it wouldn't make my leg worse than it already was. I looked up to find a man sitting on what looked like a throne.

"Leader-sama, in one of our hunting traps we found this. She had fallen into it and broken her leg." Tsuyoshi said. The man on the throne then stood up, walked over to me and then inspected me.

After walking around me he lifted my head turning it side to side. He then touched the necklace around my neck, almost like he knew what it meant.

"Release the henge." He commanded simply.

"What henge? This is what she looked like when we found her." Saburo answered.

"Don't lie to me. I know a henge when I see one; it has only been put on recently. Also you don't know what the necklace means do you. That necklace she is wearing means that she is the Uchiha matriarch, although factoring in her age, she is probably the next in line. The Uchiha would never marry someone ugly or weak." Tsuyoshi and Saburo were stunned and released the henge immediately. "You, go take her to be cleaned up." He ordered someone from the sidelines.

A man walked over to me and picked me up from the floor. I didn't see any point in struggling, it would only mess up my leg further and I was their captive either way.

**OOO**

I was currently sitting on a big bed watching another med-nin heal my leg. I had been washed and dressed in a pretty, impractical kimono. I was no longer tied up but still had the chakra restraints on.

The leader then walked into the room. "You look much better now." I just glared at him. "How is her leg?" He asked the woman sitting beside me.

"It is fully healed now but she will need to rest it for 24 hours before she can start walking again." She informed him.

"You are dismissed then." She walked out of the room leaving me alone with him. "You probably have a lot of questions." He said as he sat down in the chair the med-nin had just vacated. "What would you like to ask me?" I glared at him warily.

"Who are you?" I thought simple questions would be good to start with and I should know who my captor is.

"My name is Takumi and I am the Leader of this establishment." He replied.

"How have you managed to stay under the radar for so long?" This had been a burning question since I arrived here.

"I have my ways; however I am not going to reveal them to you." He evaded the question.

"What do you intend to do with me?" It was always good to find out a person's intensions.

"You will become one of my many concubines and eventually you will become one of my beautiful deadly guards." I was surprised by some of his answer, but at least he had been truthful. "This means that you will no longer have a need for this necklace." He said reaching out to snap it from my neck.

I reacted quickly, grabbing his wrist and bending it backwards. If I had any chakra it would have broken his wrist and probably his arm as well. The necklace was my only connection to Itachi and I hopped like hell that he would find me. "Ooh feisty, just remember that I will break you. Sakura." He then got up to leave.

"How do you know my name? I haven't told it to anyone!" I shouted at him as he left.

"Make sure you rest up for now. I will see you in 24 hours." He then left, leaving me feeling confused and alone.

_**A/N: **__This time I will ask for people to visit the pole on my profile. The question directly relates to this story currently, but may come in handy for future stories._

_I would really love your comments about the pole. The question is below for those who don't want to look on my profile._

_Q: Can I get away with oral in a T rated story?_

_A1: Yes, it should be fine_

_A2: No, change it to M rated_


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

I had been sitting here, getting really bored. All day I had the medic checking my leg to make sure it was alright, I had been given food at regular intervals but otherwise I had just been left alone to my thoughts. All I could think of was Itachi.

I hated him but I also don't. I want him to be the one who comes and rescues me. _'I hate to tell you, but you still love him, even after all he put you through.'_

'Hotaru! What are you doing here? I thought that you had gone!'

'_No, well I went away for a bit but I've been watching you from the sidelines.'_

'I thought you said that I didn't need you anymore!'

'_You didn't but you need me again now. You needed me to become strong and I left when you became strong. But I've always been watching for the right time.'_

'Oh. Well at least I'm not lonely now.'

'_I was going to appear to you a little bit later, once you'd sorted your head and heart out, but it seems like you've gone back a few steps since I last left you.'_

'Not my fault. I was kinda forced into this.'

'_So you're telling me that you never even glanced at Itachi before now?'_

'Well that's not strictly true, but I hadn't really spent any time with him before and I wasn't ready for marriage.'

'_Oh so you're liking the marriage idea now?'_

'NO! I don't know.'

'_You're not being truthful with yourself anymore. I know you love him. He's good for you.'_

'But he doesn't love me back. How can I live in a loving relationship if it was never born out of love?'

'_You're still not being truthful with yourself. You've seen the love in his eyes every time he looks at you. Didn't you avoid his touches for ages because you could see that love?'_

'I . . . I didn't really put a name to that look. I see that you're making sense like usual.'

'_That's what I'm for! Now that I've sorted your life out how can we escape?'_

'Not very easily. We have no chakra and the medic is right about me not moving for the next few hours.'

We both fell silent for a few minutes.

'_Eye spy with your little eye, something beginning with, P.'_

**OOO**

The medic walked into the room for the seventh time today. "Your leg should be healed and fully rested now. Would you like to try walking?" She asked me as she quickly examined my leg.

I nodded and used her help to get up from the position I had been in for the past day. I slowly tested my leg by starting to put some of my weight on it slowly moving so that most of my weight was on it. It held. I then slowly tested walking. The medic was always nearby in case I did fall. As I got more confident with my leg I started to walk a bit faster.

"Thank you. You've done a good job on my leg." I told her. The door opened then and Takumi walked in.

"I see that you're walking." He smiled at me. "You can go now." He ordered the medic. She then left the room. "Tonight you are to dine with me. Some people will be in soon to dress you for the occasion. This will be your own room, however if I require you, you will come to my room."

"I am not some object!" I shouted at him. _'Go Sakura! You've improved.'_

"No you are not, but you are mine to do with as I wish to." He left swiftly, closing that argument.

'_That Asshole! Who does he think he is ordering us around!'_

'I don't know but I think we should refuse to go to his little dinner thing.'

'_I really like this new Sakura. I'm going to enjoy being in your head.'_

At that moment someone walked into the room carrying a pile of cloth. "Our leader has asked me to get you presentable for tonight." She informed me of the reason behind her presence.

"Well then you can leave. I'm not going to his dinner thing." I told her walking back over to the bed.

"Fine but on your head be it." She then left.

'I wonder what she meant by that?'

'_I don't know but I'm going to sleep a little.'_

**OOO**

I woke to the sound of a door slamming against a wall. "I hear that you refuse to come and eat with me." He accused.

"You heard correctly." I told him, turning back around to go back to sleep, even though I knew he wouldn't let me.

"My invitation was not a request you could refuse. I told you to come and dine with me and so you must come and dine with me." He informed me.

"I'm not a dog either; I will not bend to your every will." I replied.

Suddenly I was dragged up from my position. The next thing I knew was a stinging pain across my face_. 'He slapped us! How dare he!'_

"You will submit to me and you will bend to my every will." He hissed at me.

"That will never happen." I growled at him.

"Oh trust me you will, eventually you will not just enjoy my touch, but you'll crave it." He let go of me and stepped back. "Since you insist on refusing dinner with me I will let you go hungry. I will return later to deal with your petulance." He stormed out of the room.

I dropped down to the floor. I rubbed the sore patch on my face and the tears started rolling down my face. _'It'll be alright, eventually. He will find you and come after you.'_ I knew who Hotaru was talking about. It made me feel marginally better, but I still felt defeated.

**OOO**

Itachi didn't know what to do. He had scoured the surrounding forests and villages but he still couldn't find Sakura. She was gone and it was his entire fault, just because he hadn't told her that he loved her. He hadn't realised how important it had been to her. He didn't know if he would ever see her again, and that thought hurt.

He was travelling back to the house they had briefly shared. He had been looking for Sakura for a week now and didn't know what else he could do.

On his journey back he came across a pit trap, large enough to fit a small mammal or even a small human. While swiftly examining the hole Itachi spotted a red ribbon lying inside. He dropped in and picked it up. It was the ribbon Sakura had been wearing the day she had run away. He now realised that the reason he couldn't find her because she had been captured by someone.

Itachi took off at full speed towards the house. He had to get a message to Tsunade immediately. He needed a team to look for Sakura. This was no domestic fight anymore, Sakura was in danger.

_**A/N: **__So the general consensus seems to be to change the story to M rated, so that is what it will become! Requesting 6 reviews before I update again._

_**BTW **__If you review Virtual Cookies are up for grab! XD_


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Itachi was in the kitchen making breakfast when there was a knock on the door. He rushed to open it, knowing that it would be the backup he had asked for. On the other side stood Sasuke, Naruto, Sai and Kakashi. Itachi waved them in and served up the eggs he had cooked.

"Why are we sitting and eating? We need to get going to find Sakura!" Naruto exclaimed loudly.

"Sit down and eat dobe." Sasuke ordered. "We need food to give us the strength to save Sakura." After Sasuke's explanation Naruto sat down and shoved the eggs down his throat.

They all finished quickly, wanting to get going as quickly as possible. Itachi took them straight to the pit he'd found the ribbon in a couple of days ago. He gave the ribbon to Kakashi. "This is where you found Sakura's ribbon?" He asked. Itachi nodded in reply. "Has it rained since Sakura went missing?"

"No, however it may rain in the next couple of days." Itachi informed him. Kakashi summoned his dogs.

"Yo, what's up?" Pakkun greeted as he poofed next to the group of ninja.

"Sakura's been kidnapped. We need you and the boys to track her. It hasn't rained since she went missing but I've been informed that it may rain in the next couple of days." Kakashi explained the situation in detail to Pakkun.

"You got her scent?" Pakkun asked Kakashi. He held out the ribbon and let Pakkun sniff at it. "Alright boys, we're looking for Sakura. She still smells like Jasmine and the hospital. We need to work quickly as it may rain." All the dogs then leapt into action sniffing for any trace of Sakura's scent.

Kakashi walked over to Itachi. "Why does she still smell the same? Normally a person's sent changes slightly when they become involved with someone else." He asked him quietly.

"As you know Sakura didn't really like the whole arranged marriage idea. I'm not going to force anything on her; I want to let her get used to the idea of being married to me." Itachi replied at the same volume, not wanting to alert the others to the situation between him and Sakura. Kakashi nodded agreeing with his chosen method.

"There are four different scents in this area. This one here," Pakkun said, walking over to an area and walked a line. "Belongs to Itachi. This one over here," he walked over another imaginary line from another direction leading directly to the pit. "Belongs to Sakura and goes directly into the pit."

"How did Sakura not see that big pit?" Naruto asked. "She's normally quite observant of her surroundings.

"She was a little upset just before she went missing." Itachi explained vaguely.

"Listen up, this is where it becomes a little complicated." Pakkun stated, grabbing all their attentions. "We found it hard to find Sakura's scent again; it was almost like it had just disappeared completely." He told them. "This is where the other two scents appear, they belong to two strangers." He walked over to another area pointing to some faint tracks. "We've scanned this area very thoroughly and Sakura's scent appears very faintly close to the pit fall trap along with the two strangers. Her scent then disappears completely." Pakkun then finished relaying their findings.

"The two strangers must have carried her." Kakashi stated. "Pakkun, could you and the boys follow the scent of the two strangers." Pakkun nodded before rounding up the other nin-dogs and set them to their task.

"We had better set up camp nearby. We're running out of daylight, it will make tracking very hard." Itachi suggested, the others nodded and found another clearing not to far from the area they were searching in.

**OOO**

It had been two days since following the scent of the two strangers. Every now and then Sakura's scent would appear when they found traces of a temporary camp. It was now raining.

Itachi, Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke, Sai and the nin-dogs were all out in the rain trying to follow the small traces left before they disappeared with the rain. They regrouped yet again to see who had the trail. "Nothing from our area." Sasuke reported immediately for him and Naruto.

"My ink creatures didn't find anything." Sai said as he dropped down into the group of ninja.

"None of us could find any trace of the trail." Pakkun reported for the whole of the pack of dogs.

"I couldn't find anything either. How about you Itachi?" Kakashi asked. Itachi shook his head, down hearted at losing the only way of finding Sakura. "There's a dry cave nearby in which we can camp in until the rain stops. There's no point in becoming ill trying to find something we're not going to find in the rain. They all nodded and followed Kakashi to the cave.

Once inside Sasuke set up a fire using one of his family's fire jitsus. Naruto and Kakashi started to set up the sleeping area. And Sai started preparing some food for cooking. Itachi walked over to an empty corner of the cave. He wanted to be alone.

After a few minutes Sasuke walked up to him and sat down beside him. He didn't say anything for a while sensing that his brother didn't really want to talk. "You wanna talk about it?" He asked simply, knowing that at some point he would want to get it out of his system.

"Not really." Itachi replied on his monotone voice. There was silence for a couple of minutes. "It was my entire fault. We had been sparing and on our way back to the house she asked me about the list the clan had given me. I told her the truth, well not quite all of it. She then asked me if I loved her. I froze; I thought she must have known." Itachi paused. "She placed a binding jitsu on me and ran off, just because I didn't tell her that I loved her. I searched for her for days and it was then that I found the pit and her ribbon. I knew she was in danger. I immediately wrote to Tsunade for the need of a team." When he was finished with the confession there were a few minutes of silence.

"That sucks. I know what it's like to lose someone you love." Sasuke commented.

"What happened between you and Naruto?" Itachi asked.

"How do you know about that?" Sasuke asked, surprised.

"We saw you pinning him against a wall, shoving your tongue down his throat at our wedding." Itachi replied smugly.

"Well we got quite a bit further that night. He didn't remember a thing and I didn't even try to remind him. Within the next week he was dating Hinata." Sasuke then looked at Naruto with a pained look in his eyes. "I'm really happy for him, but every time I look at them together it hurts so much."

"There will be someone out there for you; it's just a matter of finding them." Itachi replied trying to comfort Sasuke in some small way.


	10. Chapter 10

_**A/N: **__Since it's my 18__th__ birthday in about an hour I thought that I would be nice and update with two chapters rather than leave you on a major cliffy! ENJOY! XD_

**Chapter 10**

It had rained for two days solid. Most of the trail had been washed away. It took Itachi and the others a week to find the right track again. Itachi was becoming restless. He was worried about Sakura, because they were still not able to find her. She had now been in captivity for two and a half weeks. Anything could have been done to her; she could even be dead for all they knew.

"What's that in the distance Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto shouted out pointing to something just out of the trees.

"It looks like a village Naruto." Kakashi replied.

"We should rest there a while; get our strength up for rescuing Sakura." Sasuke suggested.

"The trail does lead towards it and it would be nice to rest somewhere warm and cosy." Pakkun agreed with Sasuke, tempting the others.

"Wait. I think this village is the place that they are holding Sakura." Sai commented. "The people who took Sakura have not been through a village before when they could have done so, why change their pattern now? And I have memorised the whole of Fire land, there is no village here. We are still technically in the middle of forest." He explained.

"I think Sai is correct. Going through a village does not fit the kidnappers' patterns and according to all known accurate information there is only forest in the area. We should make camp here and hope that we have not been spotted by any look outs." Itachi confirmed Sai's suspicions.

"And I was looking forward to a comfy bed too." Naruto sulked.

Once the temporary camp had been set up, without a fire to prevent being spotted by the enemy; Itachi sat down next to Sasuke as they ate cold leftovers from the night before.

"How can you be so composed and not rush into the village all guns blazing?" Sasuke asked him.

"Because I know it will probably get us killed along with Sakura. That is an eventuality I would like to avoid." Sasuke glared at his brother for being so rational. Itachi sighed. "I'm only being rational because I'm pretending that it is another mission like any other. If I did not, then I would already have a serious fever from the rain and probably be dead due to going into this village with 'all guns blazing' as you so delicately put it." Itachi said, giving the actual answer Sasuke had wanted.

"So what is the plan for this 'mission'?" Sasuke asked him, gaining the attention of the others at the same time.

**OOO**

Sai returned from scouting the area. "The village isn't heavily guarded. If we make henges of some of the men we may be able to sneak in undetected." He explained.

"We'll have to take out the men we are disguising as so as not to give ourselves away. Are there any easy targets nearby?" Kakashi asked Sai.

"There is a small team of scouts who would intercept us if we carry on straight to the village. If we knocked them out and hide their bodies we could pose as them and wait for their shift to end, which won't be long." They all gave Sai confused looks as to how he knew this. "They change each area of shift in two hour intervals, like a ripple effect. It's a tactic used to trick the enemy into thinking the guard changes are random when they are not. You can only see this effect if you spend a long time looking from the sky." Sai explained.

"So can we go and beat them up now?" Naruto asked.

"We won't be able to beat them up straight away Dobe." Sasuke told him. "We need to try and study the way they act a little and the way they fight so as not to rouse suspicion." He explained further.

"And then we can beat them up?" he asked sheepishly.

"Yes, then we can beat them up." He replied.

They neared the small group of ninja. They all picked out the person they would take the place of and sat in waiting, hiding in the trees and shadows, studying every detail about their target.

Five minutes later Sai spoke up, whispering to the other members of the team. "We need to attack them now if we are to have any chance of hiding their bodies before the new scout team takes their place and finds us." The others nodded and sprang into action. Everyone held back for a few moments in which to study their opponent's moves and style. The Scout team was quickly in-capacitated and disposed of.

They could hear some voices and quickly got into their positions and characters. The new scout team was upon them in minutes. "You can go now." One of the new men shouted.

"Finally, been standin' out here too long." Itachi shouted back in the voice of his scout. "Come on boys, food's awaitin' us." A few of the others let out grunts of approval, before they left to follow Itachi towards the village.

"We left that a bit close, a few more seconds and we may not have been able to hide the bodies." Kakashi commented.

"This way we don't have to wait long to get in the village." Itachi replied.

"Let's just hope they don't find the bodies. We may have to split up to cover more area. A three/two should do it; nobody is going around on their own in this place." Kakashi commanded. "Naruto, Sai and Sasuke, you go search that way. Itachi and I will go this way. If you find her, contact us on the radio." He explained handing out small radio's to everyone. They then split up. "Hopefully both Sasuke and Sai will make up for Naruto's incompetence." Kakashi added as the two groups made their way in opposite directions.

After ten minutes of searching, Itachi and Kakashi came across some sort of outside village party. Scanning the crowd they soon found a girl with pink hair sitting at the front laughing to some unknown joke. Three men walked up to them from the party. "Is that really you Kakashi-sensei? Teme says it is but you can't be." Naruto commented.

"Well done Naruto, you could have just told a villager that we were outsiders. Luckily for you Sasuke was correct." Kakashi congratulated him on being an Idiot. "We've spotted Sakura over there, but we can't grab her until she's alone, or at least with less people around." Kakashi explained before Naruto could rush off and give the game away for real.

Suddenly a bell sounded and the man in the centre next to Sakura stood up. "There are intruders in our village. Find them and bring them to me, alive." He ordered he was obviously the leader.

"Takumi!" Itachi and Sasuke said in unison.

"You know him?" Naruto asked.

"We'll explain later, now we have to keep tabs on Sakura." Itachi avoided the question as they took off in the chaos and headed in the same direction Sakura had gone.

They soon arrived at a large building situated in the centre of the village. Walking in they found the place to be deserted. From one of the many doors a girl scuttled through. "Please follow me. Our leader is expecting you." She said timidly. She walked back through the door and the group had no choice but to follow, since Sakura could be anywhere in the building. Itachi could only hope that this girl would lead them to her.

The group was led to a large room, probably the largest room in the building. As they stepped inside they were immediately greeted. "Well I've been expecting you but I would like to know who exactly has come to see me?" Takumi said from the other end of the room. He was sitting on what seemed to be a throne. The group had been busted and they knew it. One by one they released their henges. "Of course Itachi is here and your brother Sasuke, you two were always close. Kakashi the Copy Nin and Naruto the Kubbi container. Sorry I don't know who you are?" He named them one by one, before pointing to Sai.

"Sai, Root agent, Team Kakashi comrade." Sai said, introducing himself.

"A root agent, now I feel special if all of you were sent to fight me." Takumi said, self absorbed.

"Actually we are Sakura's team mates and would do anything for her. Believe it!" Naruto shouted.

"Naruto stop shouting believe it all the time." Sasuke told him.

"Ah I remember now. You leaf ninja have always had special bonds with each other. Bonds are weakness." Takumi exclaimed.

"Takumi, where is Sakura?" Itachi asked calmly, switching on his Sharringan.

"Itachi, how lovely to see you again. How's your father? Still leading the clan or has he passed the baton to you yet?" Takumi asked.

"Give me back my wife." He commanded.

"You always did suck the fun out of things Itachi. Your wife is fine; she's being looked after very well I can assure you. However I don't think she really wants to be your wife, after all she did give her virginity to me." Takumi taunted him.

Itachi moved so quickly, it looked like Takumi didn't have a chance. Itachi's sword was raised but as he moved it down to kill Takumi, it clashed with another. "Sakura?" Itachi questioned. Within seconds Sakura had made him weapon-less and had him kneeling, with her sword at his throat. Itachi had not even fought back. It was all his fault and he'd lost her. "Sakura, I'm sorry."

Other ninja jumped out from the shadows and attacked Team Kakashi and quickly had them in similar positions to Itachi. "Take them to the prison cells; I'll decide what to do with them later. Sakura I would like you to accompany me in my room tonight." Takumi ordered as the rescue party were dragged away.

**OOO**

The 'rescue' party were all sitting in the cell apart from each other. All were silent. "That wasn't Sakura." Naruto stated, breaking the silence.

"I'm afraid to tell you that that was definitely Sakura." Sasuke replied. "She may have been using different weapons but that had her fighting style all over it."

"I think that while it may have been Sakura's body, it wasn't her on the inside." Kakashi corrected them both. "On the back of her neck I saw what looked like a curse seal, however I didn't really get a good look at it, so I can't be 100% sure." Kakashi recounted.

"I saw that quite clearly but dismissed it as one of Sakura's new tattoos. I could draw it, but I don't have any paper. They took it along with our weapons." Sai added.

"I have a photo, would the back of that do?" Sasuke suggested, pulling out an old Team 7 picture.

"Yes. Don't worry; you'll get it back in pristine condition." Sai took the photo from Sasuke and started to draw something using ink from his special tattoo. When he was finished the drawing was passed around and studied. The symbol looked like triangle with a dot in the centre joining the three sides together. Inside the dot were three tome symbols like in the sharringan.

"This is definitely a curse seal." Sasuke said after studying the drawing. "I have a similar one on my neck, except without the tome symbols. It's one that Orochimaru gave me. This curse seal gives the creator power to control the individual it's placed on." Sasuke explained, passing the drawing onto Itachi. "If I'm not mistaken, this is a more powerful form of the curse which can only be used by the sharringan. The effects are enhanced by the sharringan and the creator can change memories, making the lie more convincing and harder to break." He finished, looking to Itachi.

"Yes this looks exactly like the seal you've just described Sasuke." Itachi confirmed. "I think now is the time to explain who Takumi is. His full name is Takumi Uchiha and he's mine and Sasuke's Uncle. He left the clan because our Father inherited the position of clan leader even though he is the younger son. Takumi was outraged, he destroyed a lot of the Uchiha compound before leaving, no-one knew where he went." Itachi explained fully.

"Now we know what the curse seal does, we need a way to break it." Kakashi announced.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Itachi, Kakashi, Sasuke, Naruto and Sai were dragged into the same room they had been captured in. They were led to the middle of the room and forced down onto their knees. "I have decided what to do with you intruders. You are to be executed by my personal bodyguard, Sakura." Takumi told them.

Sakura appeared from the shadows, slowly withdrawing her katana. She took a few steps towards the line of the kneeling ninja. "Sakura!" Sasuke shouted, catching her attention. She looked at him, straight into his sharringan lit eyes. "Snap out of it. This is not who you are. You'd never do something like this. Try and remember who you really are." He commanded her, heightening the effect using the sharringan.

"Well I guess you just volunteered to go first." Sakura replied, walking purposefully towards him. Fear leapt into his eyes as they realised the plan wasn't working. They had tried a similar tactic Naruto had used with Sasuke when Orochimaru had him under control, then used the sharringan to enhance the effect, hoping it would break the stronger curse. Now it was failing and they were all going to die.

Sakura walked behind him and grabbed his hair roughly in her hand, bringing his head up. She placed the blade of her katana at his neck. "Sakura." Itachi spoke gently. She sharply turned her head in his direction. Itachi lifted his head; her green eyes met his red sharringan eyes. His expression showed his love for her. "This is something I should have told you a long time ago. I love you."

"You plan to break the curse is futile. She is indefinitely under my control. Kill them all, now!" He ordered.

Sakura hesitated a moment before slitting each and every throat of the ninja kneeling on the floor, ignoring all of their pleas.

**OOO**

I watched from the sidelines as the group of intruders were walked in. They were made to kneel in a line on the floor. "I have decided what to do with you intruders. You are to be executed by my personal bodyguard, Sakura." Takumi said. I stepped out from the shadows. Takumi had always been one for theatrics. I slowly withdrew my katana from its sheath on my back and took a few steps towards the line of intruders. _'Sakura don't do this, please listen to what I've been trying to tell you!'_ Hotaru interrupted my flow. 'Go away Hotaru! I told you that I don't need you anymore!' I shouted back at her.

"Sakura!" One of the intruders shouted at me. I was sure that his eyes hadn't been red the last time. _'His name's Sasuke, your brother-in-law and teammate. Please listen to him.'_ 'Go away!' I shouted at her, even though some instinct told me that she was right. "Snap out of it. This is not who you are. You'd never do something like this. Try and remember who you really are." He told me. Something stirred inside me but I suppressed it back down.

"Well I guess you just volunteered to go first." I told him, walking purposefully towards him. Fear glinted in his eyes as he realised that I was really going to kill him. I walked behind him and grabbed his hair, pulling his head towards me so I could get to his neck easily. As I put the blade of my katana against his neck, I heard a soft voice calling me. "Sakura." I turned my head to see who had spoken. He lifted his head to show the same red eyes I had looked into moments ago. This man looked very familiar. I put that thought aside when I realised he looked very similar to Sasuke. _'Itachi. You have to remember Itachi. You love him, remember.'_ I tried to remember but there was only pain. His face showed a look of adoration. "This is something I should have told you a long time ago. I love you."

Something inside me twigged. The pain was gone. All I felt was love and adoration. Suddenly a life time worth of memories flooded back to me.

"Your plan to break the curse is futile. She is indefinitely under my control. Kill them all, now!" Takumi ordered. The usual tingling sensation I felt on the back of my neck wasn't there. I didn't want to kill my friends, my family. I quickly cast a genjitsu on the room, while I formulated a plan.

I made quick work of the rope binding their hands. Slowly one by one they woke up from the genjitsu as they 'died'.

"How am I not dead?" Sasuke asked as he became less disorientated.

"I cast a genjitsu on everyone. I had to make it believable. Sorry." I explained.

"Oh, well I'm glad you're you again." He replied.

"Out of interest when did you cast the genjitsu?" Sai asked.

"Just before I killed Sasuke." I replied.

"NO! Why did you kill me Sakura? Why didn't it work?" Naruto shouted as he woke up from the genjitsu thinking he was dead.

"Naruto! It was a genjitsu!" I shouted, hitting him round the head.

"Ow Sakura-chan! That hurt, why did you do that?" Naruto asked being the numpty he always was.

"How much do you remember?" Kakashi asked me. I could remember each second perfectly, but at that moment Itachi looked at me after waking from the genjitsu.

"Not very much really." I replied. _'Liar.'_ Hotaru whispered in the back of my mind. "I worked out what had happened pretty quickly when I came back to reality and reacted accordingly." I span off a reasonable explanation for what I did.

"Ha ha ha. Very good Sakura." Takumi said. "Maybe we should retire to my room now." I quickly took control of my genjitsu before it could alert him to its presence. I picked up my katana from the ground and walked back over to him. I lent up to his ear, my genjitsu-self whispering something in his ear. I brought the blade back and ran it through one of his vital points. The genjitsu broke immediately. "What? No, it can't be! I was very precise." He shouted. Realising what had just happened.

"Not precise enough." I whispered back. I withdrew, taking the katana with me. I put it back into the sheath on my back and pulled the others out of the room.

As we neared the front of the building, I stopped the group. "Line up in single file and take one hand of the person behind you." I told them. When they looked like they weren't going to do as I asked, I spoke again, only a little harsher. "Just do what I say." They lined up quickly. I then cast another genjitsu, making it look like they were bound together by rope. I took the free hand of the person behind me, it was Itachi's. I then took them out of the building and led them through the village towards the gate.

At the gate I was stopped by the guards'. "Where are you taking the prisoners?" He asked me.

"I'm taking them to be executed outside of the village walls." I told him.

"Won't Leader want to see the execution?" He asked, slightly suspicious.

"Takumi is busy and doesn't want to get blood all over his palace." I replied easily.

"All right, you can pass." He said waving us through. We stayed in line until we were out of sight. I then released the rope genjitsu.

"How are we going to get passed the scouts?" Sasuke asked. Once we broke formation.

"I actually didn't think that far ahead." I replied honestly.

"Sai had a good look at the scouts' formation. We can slip through undetected if we travel in that direction." Itachi said, pointing towards the right.

We all silently took off in that direction, using any and every tactic we knew to cover our trails and travel as though we were invisible.

**OOO**

We travelled for four days back to the Uchiha holiday home, where I had been having my honeymoon with Itachi. When we arrived a letter was written to Tsunade telling her that I had been found and was now safe. We all decided not to go back to Konoha for a little bit. I needed to recuperate a little and the others wanted to stick around to make sure I was okay.

I was currently sitting in the bath house, curled up in a foetal position. 'What do I do?' I asked Hotaru. _'Well you could just jump him the next time you two are alone.'_ She suggested. 'No! What if he rejects me?' I mentally shouted. _'Are you trying to be thick?'_ At that moment someone walked in stopping our conversation.

"Oh, sorry I didn't realise you were in here." Sasuke said before turning around to leave.

"It's okay. It might be nice to have some company. I know you won't do anything." I invited him to join me. It would be nice to talk to someone other than Hotaru. "What happened between you and Naruto?" I asked, starting the conversation, steering it away from me.

"Itachi asked me exactly the same question." He replied, chuckling slightly. "I'm guessing that you saw him and me together at the party. Well we actually 'got it off' that night. He didn't remember anything afterwards; I didn't even try to give him any hints. A week later he started dating Hinata." He retold the story briefly. Not giving many of his feelings, but I could see from his eyes that it tore him apart inside.

"I would give you a hug but I don't really feel like hugging you while I'm practically naked." He laughed at my comment.

"You know I wouldn't care, but yes it would be a little awkward." We both burst out laughing.

"I was actually thinking more along the lines of that fact that I'm married to your brother, and that no-one knows your secret. If anyone walked in on us it may look a lot worse than it is." He started laughing harder and I had no choice but to join him. Picturing that situation was funny enough on its own without Sasuke howling in the background.

"So, you and Itachi. How's that working out for you?" He asked me as we finished laughing.

"I don't know really." I replied honestly. "We don't really know how to act around each other. It's all a bit awkward."

"You shouldn't have been pushed into this if you don't love him. I'll talk to him, see if there's a way to get you out of this..."

"No. Loving him is the easy part. Even though I did resist the idea at first, I fell in love with him quickly. We were getting towards the stage where we were comfortable with each other but then we had a big fight and I ran. I was being stupid, not looking at my surroundings and I fell in the hole and was captured." I told him.

"Itachi told me about the fight. Talk to him. Tell him how you feel. I'm sure you two will be fine after that." He said before getting up. "I'll see you later." He then left, leaving me alone.

"So you love me then." It was more of a statement than a question. Apparently I wasn't as alone as I thought I was. Itachi dropped his towel to the floor and climbed in the pool next to me.

Slowly I nodded, looking at my feet through the water. "How long have you been listening?" I asked him.

"Long enough." He replied simply, being very vague.

"When you said that you loved me was that true?" I asked timidly.

"Yes. I've loved you for a long time. I should have told you that I didn't even read the whole list of girls. I only told you about the ones I had read. Once I saw your name, I knew that you were the only one I was ever going to pick because you were the one I already loved." He told me.

I slowly looked up at him. I then sighed, "Since we're being really honest with each other. You know that I said that I didn't really remember what happened when I was under the curse seal." He nodded, urging me to carry on. "Well I was lying. I can remember every second and it haunts me." I was whispering towards the end. Tears started to fall from my eyes.

"I know. The curse seal used was one which can only be used by the sharringan." He then pulled me into his arms, comforting me. I leant into his embrace. He pulled my face up to his and I didn't resist the small kiss he gave me.


	12. Chapter 12

_**A/N: **__Sorry for not updating... I've had exams! Only 2 more to go now... but I felt that I owed an update for this! Enjoy!_

**Chapter 12**

I was walking back home after another long shift at the hospital. Today there had been an ANBU team. They had been pretty messed up after one of their missions, classified of course. That had taken up most of my shift and I still had to do my normal round of the patients and do my fill of the paperwork, which had piled up since my time away. Due to this mass of work I stayed behind until it was all done, meaning that I got off from my shift late. About five hours late to be precise.

I walked into the Uchiha compound to meet Sasuke and Naruto walking out. They looked pretty beaten up. They had obviously been training with each other again and were looking for me to patch them up.

"Wasn't your shift supposed to end at 5:00?" Sasuke asked me.

"Yes but I had a massive pile of paperwork to do." I replied. "I'll heal you both back at the house." I told them walking in the direction they had just come from. _'You should just leave them to tend to their own injuries. They always do this to you.'_ Hotaru suggested. 'That would be mean and besides I already tried that. They didn't learn the lesson.'

We walked inside the house. Tradition stated that I move in with the whole family. It was annoying. I only wished that me and Itachi could have our own house. Mikoto was a lovely person and I enjoyed being with her, but it was Fugaku who was the problem. He was never there but as soon as you stepped out of line he would be there to scold you and put you right.

"You missed dinner Sakura." Fugaku's voice said as soon as I stepped into the hall way after taking my shoes off.

"Gomen." I apologised, bowing deeply to show my respect. "I had a lot of paperwork at the hospital to fill out. In future I will send a message if I must extend my work hours." I gave my excuse and my way to rectify it.

"Father, Sakura has been out of the village for almost two months. It is to be expected that she will have more work than normal." Itachi said trying to alleviate me from the pressure of his father. Fugaku frowned before going back into his study. "Sorry about my father." He apologised before bending down to kiss me on the cheek. I blushed.

"Excuse me! Seriously injured here." Naruto interrupted.

"Sorry, go into the kitchen." I told them before grabbing some bandages, and following them into the kitchen.

I got them to sit on a couple of stools. I started examining their wounds and healed the most serious, life threatening ones with my chakra. Anything minor was cleaned stitched and bandaged. Naruto had a few burn marks to which I applied a special salve before applying more bandages.

"There, you're no longer at deaths door." I said once I'd finished patching them up. _'I still think you should have left them to rot.'_ Hotaru added. "Now moosh! I need to . . . cook. Make that eat." Itachi had handed me a bowl of curried chicken and rice, along with a pair of chopsticks. I dug into the meal, hungry from all the healing and paperwork I had done today.

"Well, see you around Sakura. Thanks for patching us up." Naruto said, leaving the kitchen, probably to go to Icharaku's.

"Ja ne Naruto." I managed to get a word of goodbye out around the food in my mouth.

"I'm gonna go out to train a bit more." Sasuke said before turning to leave for one of the Uchiha's training fields.

"I'm not healing you again tonight, so don't stab yourself with a kunai again." I shouted at him just before he left.

"I didn't stab myself with a kunai! Naruto was holding my arm." Sasuke retorted before storming off. I giggled before finishing my dinner.

"Thanks for that." I told Itachi, putting the bowl by the sink to wash it.

"No problem, but you've still got some on your face." I looked up at him, blushing. "Just here." He said licking a few grains of rice from the corner of my mouth. My blush went a deeper shade of red.

I turned back around to finish washing my bowl and chopsticks. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, again making my blush more prominently, if that was still possible. _'You should have latched onto his mouth and kissed him.' _Hotaru taunted me. "Just shut up will you!" I shouted at her.

"I didn't say anything." Itachi said from behind me. _'Ha, that will teach you for talking to me out loud.'_ She cackled.

"I wasn't talking to you." I told him while putting the bowl back into the cupboard, highly embarrassed yet again. _'I think it's about time you told him about me.'_ Hotaru whispered in the back of my mind.

"So who were you talking to?" Itachi asked, intrigued by my outburst.

"You're going to think that I'm completely insane, but I was talking to someone who lives inside my head." I told him. He didn't laugh or look at me like I was the most insane person on the planet. "I'm not schizophrenic; I checked for that when I became a medic. I really have another person living on the inside of my head." I tried to explain this in the best possible way. "She can't take over my body for instance, because we are separate people, but she knows my every thought and tries to point me in the right direction."

"So she's more like a conscience that you've created for yourself?" Itachi asked.

"No because she doesn't always put me in the good right direction, she just points out the desires I suppress, but I think that's mainly because she can read all my thoughts and feelings. I used to call her Inner Sakura when I was younger, but she told me off and told me that her real name was Hotaru. That was my main basis for her being a separate person." I tried to explain it better but it wasn't really working. "I'm not really explaining this right am I? I've never really told anyone about this before."

"You can only ever try to explain things as best as you can, it's up to the other person to listen and try to understand to the best of their abilities." Itachi recited something which sounded like an ancient proverb. "My mother told me that when I was young." He explained. It seemed that Mikoto was full of wisdom.

"Your mother is a very wise woman." I told him.

"I picked up many things through my experiences in life, Sakura." We both looked up to the doorway to find Itachi's mother standing there. "Now Itachi, I know you and Sakura are newlyweds, but you can't hog her and leave me with nobody. And don't you dare tell me that I still have your father and Sasuke. You know as well as I do that your father is always in that study of his and that Sasuke is always out training or with Naruto." Mikoto stopped Itachi from speaking, who had opened his mouth to answer back. "Since it's too late to do anything today, why don't we do something together tomorrow Sakura?"

"Um, well I'm training with my team in the morning, before having lunch with them and I have a shift at the hospital at 7:00. So I'll be free during the afternoon." I told her my day tomorrow so we could arrange a time. Itachi opened his mouth to speak up about our plans for the afternoon, but I just elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up. I didn't want to upset Mikoto.

"Oh that will be perfect. When you've finished your lunch with your team you can come back home to meet me. I'll even let you freshen up first as well." She said with enthusiasm. "Well it is awfully late now and we have a big day tomorrow, I shall be retiring now. Itachi don't keep your wife up for too long, she has a packed day tomorrow." Mikoto then left.

"I am going to take that as our plans are no longer happening?" Itachi asked me when Mikoto was out of ear shot.

"Yes, I'm sorry. I just couldn't really say no to Mikoto. I'm not making this house anymore unbearable, by fighting with your mother as well as your father." I explained my reasoning for what had just happened.

"Fine, I will just make different plans for tomorrow afternoon then." He compromised. He then kissed me on my head. "My mother is right about the time. We really should be going to bed."

"Sleep sounds nice right now." I said before we moved to our room for the night.


	13. Chapter 13

_**A/N:**__ I have no excuses for not updating... sorry... here are two chapters! XD_

**Chapter 13**

"Sakura-chan, you need to work on your stance a little when fighting. Also to pass the jonin exams you will need to learn a couple more flashy jitsus." Kakashi told me as we finished our training. "Sasuke, try not to rely too heavily on your sharingan, other ninja won't be expecting that. You need to improve the speed at which you perform seals and you need to improve your footwork when using chidori." He was picking at all the little details so that we would be ready for the jonin exams. "Sai you need to work on your close range fighting, a good shinobi needs to be able to deal with any situation. Naruto, you need to go back to the basics and practice kunai throwing and basic taijitsu." We all snickered at that comment apart from Naruto who deflated a little.

"Naruto, just because you're a great ninja, doesn't mean that you can start neglecting the basics." Sasuke told him.

"Did you just say I was a great ninja?" Sasuke blushed and turned to start walking towards Icharaku's. "You did didn't you! So you admit it." He then punched the air.

"I'm not done with my feedback you four." Kakashi said, still standing in the same spot as before. "Your teamwork is impeccable and you've all improved since the last time we trained together. Ramen is on me." We all looked at him stunned. He never paid for Ramen; he always found a way to get out of paying. Well everyone tried really; the amount Naruto could eat in one sitting was amazing. "If you keep standing here I'll have gone by the time you get to Icharaku's and you'll have to pay for the Ramen yourselves." He then poofed away. He still hadn't taught us that jitsu. We all knew that he really would leave us with the bill if we didn't get there pronto. Using our ninja skills we raced across the town towards our team's regular hangout.

**OOO**

After eating two portions of ramen since I'd skipped breakfast that morning I walked back home with Sasuke. Kakashi had left early since he had a mission, as did Sai and Naruto stayed behind to eat more ramen. Once home, I took a shower and then looked for Mikoto. I found her sitting in the living room. "What have you got planned for us Mikoto?" I asked her.

"Well I was thinking that we could go out shopping for a bit, treat ourselves a little you know. I then need to pick up some groceries. If you like you could then help me with the cooking." She put out a small plan. I didn't know how we would fit it into the amount of time that we had but I would give it a go.

"That sounds good, I must warn you though, my cooking skills are very limited." I told her.

"That's fine, although I'm sure if you tried you would be very good at it." She replied. "If you're ready then we can leave now if you like." I nodded and walked towards the door. We stopped in the hallway to put our shoes on before walking towards the town centre.

"Why do you think that I'd be good at cooking?" I asked her as we made our way towards the first set of shops.

"Because you know how to mix medical herbs, poisons and antidotes. That kind of thing helps. And I'm going to give you some of my recipes. My recipes are the best." She then smiled and walked into an expensive kimono shop, I followed behind her, stunned at her way of thinking. "Now there are many events which we must attend in the village, since we are the head of the Uchiha family we must often be present. Some of them are a little tedious, but it gives you an excuse to dress up. Ninja get very few occasions. The only way out of them is if you are away on a mission, and even then it's frowned upon." She explained. We were probably buying clothes for these event things.

"Is that why you stopped being a ninja?" I asked her.

"This would look lovely on you." She said holding up a black kimono with red detailing on it. I sighed it seemed she wanted to change the subject.

"Yes that material would make a beautiful kimono." I agreed. "This one is also very nice." I said holding up a white kimono with pink sakura petals, they looked like they were designed to look like they were falling to the bottom of the material.

"Yes, I think we'll take these." She then waved over the shop assistant who took my measurements and told us that the kimonos would be ready in a few days. "Sakura," She said quietly after we left the shop in search of accessories. "I feel like I should answer your question. I quit my job of being a ninja because I was pregnant with Itachi. I always thought that when my boys became old enough to look after themselves that I would go back to being a ninja. The clan pushed me to stay at home and give up the life of a ninja. I've regretted letting them push me into something I never really wanted. I'm telling you so this you don't make the same mistake I did. I know we pushed you into the marriage, but don't let them rule you for the rest of your life."

"Thank you Mikoto. I'll remember to stand up for myself." I replied quietly.

**OOO**

Itachi walked out from his office, finished with his work for the day. He was walking through the hidden complex in search for Yamato. He had been planning a surprise for Sakura for a while, but after her comments from last night he felt compelled to start on the project right away. At least now he had the time to start the job.

"Yamato, can I speak to you for a moment?" Itachi asked him when he found him walking down the same hallway.

"It's not about work is it?" He asked. "Just come from an interrogation, need the rest of the day off." Yamato informed him, sounding as rough as he looked.

"Actually I am also off duty at the moment. I wanted to talk to you about the house. I was wondering whether we could start the plans for it?" He asked him.

"Well I was going to just going to whittle some figurines. I suppose I can whittle some other time though." Yamato said, agreeing to the newly made plans.

"We can confirm the plans over lunch if you like. Is sushi okay?" Itachi offered.

"Sushi's fine. If you already have the plot of land I could even build the main body of the house today." Yamato added as they walked out of the ANBU headquarters.

**OOO**

"I send my complements to the chef today." Itachi said as we were eating dinner.

"That was mainly Sakura's work today." Mikoto complemented me.

"I didn't do that much, all I did was chop and stir while watching Mikoto cook." I corrected the information. My eye then caught the clock. "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry but please excuse me. I need to leave for my shift at the hospital." I stood up and gave a quick bow before rushing out of the room to grab the things I would need for my shift.

Arriving at the hospital I quickly signed in and ran to my office to drop off my things and pick up the roster for the rounds I would have to make today.

After finishing my first set of rounds for the night I returned to my office to complete the paperwork which had amounted on my desk. There was something different about the office, the desk was tidy compared to its normal mess and sitting in the middle of the desk was a bento with a note attached.

_Sakura, inside the bento are some dumplings made by Mikoto. We didn't want you to become hungry._

_Itachi._

Itachi left the bento for me; he must have also been the one to tidy my desk for me. I had to remember to thank him in the morning. I sat down at the desk and started to fill out the paperwork, noticing that I could find everything I needed with more ease. I need to keep my desk more like this all of the time, maybe a little messier to add my personal flare and the risk that I would fling the papers on my desk as old habits creeped back again.

I opened the bento and opened the smaller box inside which contained a small amount of soy sauce in which to dip the dumpling in. I picked out the pair of chopsticks and popped one of the dumplings into my mouth as I started reading the first sheet on the pile of paperwork.

When I was half way through the pile of paperwork one of the nurses barged into the room. "Sakura-san you're needed in surgery now. A group of seven ANBU has just arrived. They're in a serious condition." She told me quickly with a panicked voice.

"Stay calm. Go and fetch Tsunande and any medics who are off duty." I ordered as I stood up from my desk. I left the room in a hurry after her, making my way towards the operation room. As I arrived I could see some of the other nurses and medics who were on duty. Some people were trying to heal the shinobi, others were flailing around not knowing what to do. I had to take control of the situation if the ninja were to live. "Everyone, shut-up. We need to be more professional." I shouted, gaining the rooms attention. Looking at the conditions of each ninja, I divided the medics up and gave some instruction as to what to do.

The last person had silver hair and a fabric mask. It was Kakashi. There was a moment of instability within me before my professional side took over. I immediately started to work on him, adamant that he wouldn't die. As other medics appeared I directed them to where they were needed most.

With all hands on deck we managed to save nearly everyone, only one person had died. I walked back to my office in a slightly dazed state. I sat in my chair and immediately fell asleep.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

I woke to a knock. Tsunade stepped into my office. "Morning sleepyhead." She said. "I'm proud of the way you handled the situation last night. Not many people would have been able to keep a professional head while healing someone they are close to." She told me, praising my efforts from last night. "I had one of the other nurses do your second rounds for you last night."

"I'm sorry for sleeping on the job. What punishment will I receive?" I asked her.

"Sakura there will be no punishment. You needed to sleep last night, and it would make me hypocrite since I drink on the job, I highly doubt that is acceptable." She retorted. I laughed knowing everything she said was true.

"How is the ANBU team?" I asked, secretly asking about Kakashi.

"They are recovering well thanks to your efforts. Kakashi is stable at the moment, however he's currently in a coma and won't be allowed visitors for the next few days. Now go home Sakura, get some sleep. And that's an order." She then left my office. Since my shift was actually over I decided that I would just go home and relax. I gathered up my things and left the hospital, signing out to show that my shift was officially over.

Arriving home I took my boots off and walked into the hallway. "Good morning Sakura." Mikoto greeted me. "Are you going to join us for breakfast?" She always tried to have at least two family breakfasts a week. My stomach growled at that moment in time.

"I think my stomach has just answered for me." I laughed. I followed her into the dining room where everyone else was already sitting. Once we all had a meal in front of us we said Itadakemasu.

"Did you like the dumplings I sent last night?" Mikoto asked me.

"They were lovely. Just what I needed when I was filling in the paperwork. Although I'm afraid I've left the box back in my office." I told her.

"It's quite alright. I'm sure you can bring it back with you next time." She commented. "So it was a pretty uneventful shift then if you were reduced to paperwork." She stated.

"No not really. An ANBU team had been critically injured. I had to get most of the medics in Konoha to deal with it actually. One person died." I said as much as was allowed to about the situation.

"It wasn't the team Kakashi was on, was it?" Sasuke asked. He must have noticed the hint of sadness in my voice.

"It was." I told him. "He wasn't killed, but he is in a coma and won't be allowed visitors for the next few days." I explained in more detail.

"Does Naruto know yet?" He asked.

"No. It's probably best not to tell him until people are allowed to visit him, 'coz otherwise he'll just barge into the hospital." I replied.

"Are we going to cancel the training then? Or do you think we should still practice?" He gave two options.

"We should probably still practice. We need all that we can get. Maybe we could ask Yamato-taichou to watch us?" I suggested.

"May I ask what you are practicing for?" Mikoto asked us in the middle of our conversation.

"We're going to enter the jonin exams this year." I told her.

"If you need someone to help you prepare for the exam I'm sure Itachi would be very willing to help, won't you Itachi." She told us, practically forcing Itachi into the role.

"Of course, I am not overly busy with ANBU at the moment. However training sessions will have to be in the afternoon." Itachi explained. "I must take my leave now." He said standing up. "Meet me in training field 3 at 2:00." He then walked out of the dining room.

"I'm gonna go find Naruto, you coming Sakura?" Sasuke said as he stood up.

"No, I want to catch up on some much needed sleep. I'm gonna need my chakra later." I too stood up. We both bowed to Mikoto and Fugaku to show our respect before leaving the dining room and walking towards our different destinations of the house.

**OOO**

After our ritual team lunch at Icharaku's, Naruto, Sasuke and I walked to training field 3. Sai had to skip this training session because he was on another Root mission. He was only carrying on with Root until the rest of us became jonins, then we could be a proper team.

We were the first to arrive, which was normal when Kakashi was teaching us. "Any idea why Itachi's late?" Naruto asked us after a few minutes of waiting. "I would expect Kakashi-sensei to be late, but I had pinned Itachi as one to be a stickler for being on time." He explained further. We both shrugged in response. Neither of us knew, we had pegged him in the same hole as Naruto. We all then sat down on the ground, I started picking at the grass a little, Naruto started meditating as he did now whenever he could and Sasuke took out his katana and started to clean and sharpen it, even though it was already.

Suddenly a group of 7 unmarked ninja leapt out from the surrounding trees. I dropped the handful of grass I had just pulled out of the ground, Sasuke dropped his sharpening tools and Naruto activated his sage mode. As we jumped up from our positions, I punched the ground giving us cover as we seemingly disappeared from our attackers' sight. Both Sasuke and Naturo flung out a set of kunai as I flung out several senbon which had been dipped in a powerful sedative. My senbon hit three of the attackers, they instantaneously keeled over.

One of the attackers had snuck up behind me; I pushed chakra to my fist. I turned. He was bringing a katana down towards me. I met his wrist with my chakra packed hand, instantly his bone shattered. I pushed chakra into my other hand and punched him, effectively knocking him out.

I looked out across the training field, one attacker looked like he'd just been hit with Naruto's Rasengan and another had a large gash and burns from Sasuke's Chidori blade. The last ninja was fighting both Naruto and Sasuke. I quickly found another one of my sedative dipped senbon and threw it, aiming at his neck. The senbon found its target, the ninja flopped over.

Itachi then walked out from a gap in the trees. He had obviously been watching us from the trees. I then guessed that the unmarked ninja were probably some ANBU that he had gathered together. "Very good, you took a large team of ANBU down in a very short time. Not even killing a single one, were you going to keep them for questioning?" He asked.

"Yes and it's not very nice to jump us like that in our own village." I said grinding my teeth together.

"Well it shows me that you are always on alert, even when you do not look like it. A very good skill to have." He told us, we should have been taking his comments as complements but we were just a little pissed at that moment. "I'm going to call this training session to an end. Be here the same time tomorrow, don't be late. Now I think the hospital should be notified about the ANBU you have injured." He then turned to leave.

"You're not moving anywhere Itachi Uchiha!" I shouted at him. "Naruto go get some medics from the hospital!" I barked at him, he fled immediately. "Sasuke determine which ninja were hit by the sedative and line them over by that tree. Itachi find me my medical supplies." I then walked over to the ANBU Sasuke had fought. I knew that he was the one with the most severe injuries. Sasuke had deliberately missed his vital points, however it had still injured him to the verge death if he was not treated quickly. There was no bleeding since the chidori had the effect of singing the broken blood vessels, closing them. This had the effect of stopping the blood flow round the body correctly, which was what would kill him off eventually.

Itachi arrived with my medic kit at that point. "Pass me the cotton wool and the tweezers." I ordered holding my hand out as I widened the small gash so I had better access to the internal organ which had been damaged.

Using my healing chakra I opened up the closed blood vessels and with the tweezers reconnected them together again, this had an unfortunate stage in which a lot of blood would escape as the pressure was released so the cotton wool was placed nearby to absorb any escaping blood. This could be a lengthy process but because Sasuke had missed the vital points he hadn't been badly damaged. Once I had connected all of the blood vessels, I quickly looked for any other damage which may have been caused, there wasn't any. I then closed up the gash. "Pass me the blue salve." I asked Itachi, again not looking at him as I finished closing the gash. I then applied the salve to the burns around the gash and the other small burns he had collected from fighting with Sasuke.

"Sakura-san, what happened?" One of the medics Naruto had brought back from the hospital asked.

"A surprise training session." I muttered under my breath. "This one needs a mild pain-killer and the burns salve applied three times a day." I said pointing to the ANBU I had just treated. "The four grouped over here have been hit with my sedative, when they wake up they will be a little disorientated but otherwise fine. This one over here has been hit with the Rasengan." I said walking over to the area Naruto had fought in. "And the other has a broken right wrist and jaw. I trust that you can take over from here. I have some things to deal with." I left the medics who had arrived to deal with the left over's as no one was in a critical condition anymore.

I turned to Itachi, a death glare on my face. I heard some quick goodbyes from Sasuke and Naruto, they must have notice the mood I was in. "I would love to fight with you later Sakura, however there are some more pressing matters to which I must attend. I will see you later." He then kissed me on the forehead before leaving with a poof, frustrating me even more.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

I stormed up to Tsunade's office after Itachi ran away from his surprise attack. I walked straight into the room without knocking. All the people in the room looked towards me. It seemed that Tsunade was currently having a meeting with the council. "Gomenasi!" I said bowing with respect. "I'll come back later." I then quickly backed out of the room, closing the door.

"You should keep that apprentice of your's on a leash, you let her run around on her own too much." I heard one of the council members comment.

"I'll decide how to handle my apprentice!" Tsunade shouted. "Now can we get back to the matter at hand." She ordered more than suggested. I then sat down on the seats opposite her office and decided to stop eavesdropping on the conversation going on inside.

A few minutes later the council then walked out. They all ignored me as they walked away. I waited until they had all walked down the hallway a little before I walked calmly into the office. "So Sakura, what brings you bursting into my office?" She asked me as she started to fill in some of the paperwork.

"Itachi." I mumbled. "He's being so," I paused as I searched for the right word to describe how he had been for the past day. "Uchiha like." I settled for. Tsunade then pushed the paperwork to the side and reached under the desk for her secret sake stash and two small cups. "Shizune will kill you if you don't get that paperwork done." I warned her.

"Some things are more important than paperwork." She stated. "What's he done this time?" She then asked me.

"Because Kakashi is in a coma we needed a new trainer for the jonin exams. Me and Sasuke had been discussing this over the breakfast table. Mikoto had suggested Itachi, practically forcing him into the role. We agreed on afternoon sessions, but today he brought along several ANBU operatives and attacked us suddenly. We reacted accordingly. Of course we were pissed afterwards but then he acted all 'urgg' and left. So now I'm really angry with him." I picked up the sake offered to me and downed it in one.

Tsunade poured more sake into my cup before speaking. "Well my advice would be to not let him get to you." I tried to interrupt her but she stopped me. "Let me finish before you jump to conclusions." I kept quiet after that. "When you see him at night in your bedroom, that is when you get your own back. As a woman you hold all of the power there. Do you understand what I mean?" She insinuated towards things we hadn't even talked about before, never mind did.

I deflated a little. "Yeah, but all we do in there together is sleep." I told her, sighing.

"Is that your choice or his, Sakura?" She asked. I frowned at the question. "Since he's a guy I'm guessing that it's your's. If that is the case then you're already holding all of the cards. My suggestion would be to give him a little flavour of you tonight but leave him hanging on the edge." My eyes opened wide at her suggestion. It sounded quite scandalous.

I smiled "I might try that. I kinda have something else to ask you actually." She nodded, telling me to continue. "Because our training sessions have been moved to the afternoon, could my hospital shifts be moved to mornings?" I asked. That had been the real reason to see Tsunade, with the added plus of venting out my feelings.

"I'll see what I can do Sakura. I was thinking of cutting down your hospital hours anyway. It would give you more time to practice for the exams and to get some much needed sleep and rest." She informed me.

"Thank you Shishou. I must get home; Fugaku will kill me if I'm late for dinner again." I downed the last of my sake and left Tsunade's office to make my way home.

**OOO**

Dinner had been quiet. After Mikoto had found out how our days were the silence fell. Itachi, Sasuke and Fugaku were never the type to make conversation unless spoken to directly and neither me nor Mikoto had anything to talk about.

Tsunade had given me the paperwork she should have been doing when I was there. Once I had filled that in, I went to bed early and waited for Itachi to arrive so I could execute mine and Tsunade's plan.

When Itachi walked in I pretended to be asleep. I heard him moving about the room, getting ready for bed. After a few minutes I felt a slight draft and the bed dip as he got under the covers. He then shifted a bit closer to me and kissed me on the forehead, an unknown feeling ran down my spine and I felt my stomach heat up.

I waited for about a minute before I quickly slipped down under the covers completely. I reached for his boxers and carefully slipped them down. I saw that he automatically stiffened. I took his member into my hand and started to pump slowly and gently. I heard him groan as I started moving my hand. I applied more pressure and saw him grip the sheets beneath us tightly as he growled slightly. I took the head into my mouth and sucked, my name slipped from his mouth in a heated moan. I let go with a small pop to place small kisses up and down his length, making his body shudder slightly. Small moans escaping whenever I used my tongue. I took him fully into my mouth. He let out a large moan followed by my name. His hands found their way into my hair as I bobbed up and down sucking on him.

"Sakura!" He said breathily, almost desperately. I carefully removed his hands from my hair and removed my mouth. I gave the end one last kiss before pulling his boxers back up. I crawled up the bed and lay down on the bed with my back to him. I heard him growl before I was pulled away from my position towards him. He roughly pressed his lips against mine, kissing me more passionately than he had ever before. I pushed him away so I could breathe.

"You've never kissed me like that before!?" I accused him softly.

"You've never done that to me before!" He half answered, half accused me. "Why did you stop?" He growled.

"Because you've been a complete ass today." I answered, ripping myself from his grip, turning my back to him again. The growl in his throat changed into a sigh. He then got up from the bed and walked into the adjacent bathroom. I heard the shower start. After a few minutes I could hear grunts coming from the bathroom area. I had reduced him to taking a cold shower before having to jack off. I felt quite proud of that, although there was a small pang of guilt for making him do that.

The sound of the shower disappeared. A few minutes later Itachi walked back into the room, drying himself off. After putting on a pair of boxers he slipped back into the bed. He tossed and turned for a few minutes before he snuggled up to me and put his arm over my waist. I was glad that he wasn't too mad at me. I put my hand over his and fell asleep.

**OOO**

The next morning I woke up alone. As I poured myself a bowl of cereal, a sleepy Sasuke walked in. Itachi was just buttering his toast. "Can you two please keep your antics down at night?" Sasuke asked us. I instantly blushed. He must have heard us last night since his bedroom was next door to ours.

"Well you won't have to listen for much longer Otouto." Itachi commented. He sat down at the counter and took a bite of his breakfast. I sat down beside him as Sasuke poured himself a cup of tea.

"What does that mean?" I asked him as I put a spoon of my cereal into my mouth. "What does it mean, Itachi?" I wasn't giving up, I wanted to find out what he meant by his comment. "Itachi!" I growled.

He just stood up and walked towards the door. "I'll see you later. Training field 3 at 2:00. Don't be late." He then left, leaving me fuming once again.

I finished my breakfast before running out the house to find Ino. I looked at her parents flower shop and found her just opening the store. "Hey!" I greeted her.

"Mum, look after the store. I'm going out with Sakura for a bit." She called out to her mum while taking her apron off.

"Have a nice time sweetie." Her mum called back as Ino grabbed my hand and dragged me off. She took me to the small cafe round the corner we often went to. She ordered us both a pot of green tea and a plate of dangos.

"So give me all the juicy bits! Is he amazing in bed?" She demanded once the waitress had left to get our order.

"I wouldn't know." I replied honestly. "It's kinda what I wanted to talk to you about..." I trailed off as the waitress came back with our tea and dangos.

"So he's refusing to do it with you? Because if he is, he is one stupid guy." Ino complemented me, trying to get to the root of the problem.

"It's not his choice, it's mine. I just didn't know if I was ready yet and he's just so infuriating all of the time." I told her answering her question of why we hadn't got it on yet.

"Sakura, you're married to hot stuff so just jump him already." She was trying to egg me on.

"I kind of did already." Ino chocked slightly on the tea she had just drank. I decided to start from the beginning of the story, she would ask for all the details anyway. "Yesterday he had been really annoying. I talked to Tsunade and she gave me some pointers on how to get my own back in the bedroom. So last night I went to bed before him and waited, pretending to be asleep. When he got into bed, I gave him a blow job but before he could finish I stopped and turned away from him." Ino interrupted at that point, stopping my story.

"Wow Sakura, I never thought you could do anything like that. How did you survive leaving an Uchiha hanging?" She asked in a loud voice.

"Shh, keep your voice down and actually it was Tsunade's idea not mine." I told her with a loud whisper.

"Who knew that Tsunade could be such a pervert?" Ino commented.

"She hangs around Jarriya too much. Anyway can I carry on with my story?" She nodded, telling me that she needed more information. "Well after I turned away from him he pulled me towards him and ... kissed me very passionately, more so than he had ever before. We then argued before he left to have a cold shower, which obviously didn't help because I heard him jack off a few minutes later." I finished my story and waited for Ino to close her open mouth and give her opinion on what had happened.

"Girl, you got mean. Well at least he now knows that you're interested. If I was Itachi Uchiha, I would try and get my own back on you by fully dominating you tonight." Ino put some very weird and twisted pictures in my head. She laughed knowing exactly what was going through my head. "Sorry for that. But he's going to do something to make sure that he gets you tonight, I have no idea how that man has managed to wait for you that long." She corrected her wording.

"Hey Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouted from across the street. "You gonna join us for some ramen?" He asked as he and Sasuke walked over to where Ino and I were sitting.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was already 12.30. If we wanted to get to the training session on time we would have to get to Icharaku's soon. "Yeah sure. Go on ahead of me. I'll be there in a minute." I told them waving them off so I could finish speaking with Ino.

"So if that's what you think will happen tonight, what do you think I should do?" I asked her going back to our conversation.

"Just let it happen, you two should have done this a long time ago." She told me.

"Thanks for the advice Ino." I said sarcastically. "I should catch up with Naruto and Sasuke now. See ya some time." I said getting up from our table, putting down some money for my share. I then took off towards Icharaku's.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

I was currently sitting in the middle of training field 3, going through my chakra exercises. We had finished our training session a while ago but Itachi had told me to stay here. He said he had a surprise for me. I had decided to humour him, since that was the advice Ino had given me, 'to just let it happen'.

I felt Itachi walking up behind me and started to move to see what my surprise was. "Keep still and keep your eyes closed." He ordered me calmly. Again humouring him, I did as he said. I felt something wrap around my eyes, he was blindfolding me.

"Really, Itachi! Is this necessary?" I asked.

"Well if you knew where you were going, I might just have to kill you." He whispered into my ear. I giggled, remembering the last time he wanted to surprise me in a similar way on our honeymoon. He then helped me to stand up from my sitting position on the ground. Once I was standing he carefully picked me up bridal style into his arms. I hooked my arms around his neck to secure my position as he jumped for the trees.

After a few minutes of travelling he stopped and gently put me back down on the ground. "So my surprise is something big which can't be carried around." I commented.

"Yes you could say that. I'm going to remove the blindfold, but I want you to keep your eyes closed for the moment." I nodded to show I understood him. The piece of cloth which kept me from seeing fell away, but I still kept my eyes closed like he asked me to. He moved me slightly, as though trying to get the perfect view to whatever my surprise was. "This took me a few days to prepare and I did have some help, but I'm sure you will like it." He told me as he walked behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders. "Open your eyes." He whispered gently into my right ear.

My eyes slowly fluttered open to find a large house in front of me. "Oh, this is beautiful." I exclaimed. The house was set in its own clearing and had three floors, each with their own balcony. The ground floor had a porch with a swing chair and even the flat roof had a set of stairs in the corner with a rail along each side. To the side was a large bath house, which looked large enough to contain a swimming pool as well as the indoor spring and a small changing area. "Who does it belong to?" I asked after I had taken in all of the features.

"It's ours to live in, away from my family. The house is still in the Uchiha compound, but it's just inside the Uchiha forest. Would you like to see inside now?" I couldn't believe that he had built me, us a house to live in, away from his family. I just nodded and allowed him to pull me towards the entrance.

I took my shoes off in the entryway before stepping out into the hallway. As we walked along Itachi pointed out the living room on one side before the kitchen on the other. Both of those rooms were fairly large. At the end of the corridor, where it then turned to the left, was the dining room. He moved me through into it. Tonight it had been illuminated with candles and had been set out for two. Dinner had already been laid out on the table, with a small vase of flowers in the centre. The other doors were open, giving me a glimpse of the garden at the back of the house. The room had been laced with the atmosphere of romance; it wasn't cheesy but very classy. "Would you care to dine with me?" He asked.

"Of course I would." I replied before taking a seat at the table. He must have been preparing this while I was waiting at the training field. "Why did you build this house for me?" I asked as we started to eat our meal.

"Technically Yamato built it, but all the plans were mine. I knew you were struggling to live with my family, well my father and I wanted somewhere of our own. A private place, where we could do anything we wanted without any fear of treading on people's toes." He was being overly nice again; maybe I should take Ino's advice and just let whatever might happen, happen. "Do you like it?" He asked me hesitantly.

I looked up into his eyes, which held a hint of doubt in them. I smiled before answering. "No." He deflated a little. "I don't like it because I love it." He looked up at me with hope in his eyes. "You fell for it." I started to giggle like a maniac.

"That's it, no pudding for you." He said as he took away our finished dishes. I stood up to follow him.

"I didn't really mean it Itachi. I was just messing with you." Suddenly I was pinned against the wall.

"So you don't really love this house I built for you?" He asked, whispering into my ear.

"That's not what I meant and you know it." I retorted. "What's on the other two floors?" I asked, changing the subject. However he kept me pressed up against the wall.

"The second floor contains a games room, a study and a library. The third floor contains a few bedrooms and the roof contains a space for large parties or just a place to spend time if wanted. Would you like to see our master bedroom now?" He asked. He voice had lowered slightly, becoming huskier and more sensual. This was exactly what Ino had been talking about. I now had to make a very big decision very quickly. I knew my body had stiffened slightly at Itachi's words. He was waiting patiently for my answer, placing small slow kisses up and down my neck. At his actions I slowly relaxed.

I moved my head towards his catching his lips with mine. We kissed slowly but passionately. When we broke apart for air I gave him my answer. "I'd love to see our room, and maybe even try out the bed." Itachi needed no more encouragement and pulled me up into his arms once again and quickly made his way to our new room in our new house.

**OOO**

I awoke the next morning tucked into Itachi's bare chest. As the memories of last night flooded back to me, I couldn't help but smile and giggle. It had hurt a little at first, but once the pain had disappeared it felt so good. We had done it so many times and in so many positions last night. "What is so funny?" Itachi asked me.

"Nothing." I replied simply. "I just like waking up like this; we should do it more often." I then snuggled in closer to him. We just lay there, not moving. Neither of us wanted to get up in a hurry. "I have a hospital shift this morning." I told him. We still didn't move.

Eventually Itachi sighed before moving. I tried to cling to him to keep him in the bed. I failed miserably.

"Come shower with me." It was a request not an order, but I felt like I had to follow it through. I stumbled a little as we walked over to the small bathroom. My thighs and the area between felt so stiff and achy. Once we were able to get in the shower we both washed each other, exchanging several long, loving kisses in the process. Once we turned the shower off we both grabbed a towel and started to dry each other off. We walked back into our room and grabbed our clothes from yesterday. We would need to move our stuff in to really make it ours.

Breakfast in the kitchen resulted in several more steamy make-out sessions. We parted ways at the door as Itachi made his way towards the ANBU office and I went towards the hospital. When I made it to the hospital I quickly signed in and made my way to my office to see which patients were on my list for the day.

The first person on my list was Kakashi. My eyes widened and I immediately went to the room he was being kept in. I remembered to be professional just before I reached his room and managed to walk through the door calmly. I read his chart quickly to see what his condition was like. It seemed like he was stable for the moment.

I saw that he was supposed to have had a small dose of morphine a few hours ago, but it wasn't marked off that it had been administered to him. I checked the level in the small tube on his arm which drip fed the morphine so he wouldn't get too much at once. It was completely empty. Whichever nurse had forgotten to administer it to him would regret it. I measured out the right dose of morphine but before I could administer it to him, Kakashi's eyes fluttered open. He tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry. "Hang on Kakashi. I'll go get you a glass of water." I told him. I rushed out of the room to grab a glass and a jug of water. I walked quickly back to Kakashi as fast as possible without spilling any water. "Here." I said passing him a newly poured glass of water. "Kakashi, how do you feel?" I asked him once he had drunk the water.

Kakashi then spoke, his voice still a little crackly from the lack of speaking and drinking the last couple of days. "Sakura-chan, you need to get Tsunade-sama. We have a spy in the village."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

At Kakashi's words I leapt up and discarded all my other duties. I was sure that nobody would mind since we had to deal with a much more serious matter. I knocked rapidly on the door to Tsunade's office and walked straight in, not waiting for someone to answer. The council was sitting in Tsunade's office again. "What are you doing insolent child?..." One of the council members started saying as I burst in to the room, however I cut him off.

"Tsunade, Kakashi's awake and we have a Code Black on our hands." I told her quickly not letting anything interrupt me.

"We will have to resume our meeting later I'm afraid more pressing matters have cropped up." Tsunade told the council as she rose from her desk and walked out of the room. Shizune followed quickly behind. We all quickly ran back to Kakashi's room. "Do you know any details of this Code Black?" She asked me as we were running through the corridors.

"No. As soon as Kakashi mentioned it I ran straight to you." I replied. We quickly came upon Kakashi's room. As we rushed into the room I could see that Kakashi was still just as weak as before and poured him another glass of water.

"Kakashi." Tsunade called, demanding his attention. "Do we have a spy in our village?" She asked him straight off.

"Yes." He replied before taking a sip of the water I had just handed him. "Is Sakura allowed to know the details of our mission?" He asked. Obviously the mission had been real top secret.

"She knows too much already, and we both know that she isn't the traitor." Tsunade replied trying to get more information out of him.

"As you know we had a mission in Iwa." Tsunade nodded urging him on. "When we got to the base we were ambushed by Iwa nin. They didn't stumble upon us randomly, they had known we would be there and precisely where we would be." He paused for a moment, taking another sip of water. "It would seem we have an infiltration to the highest level. Within ANBU." Kakashi finished and gauged Tsunade's reaction, as did I.

"We will have to polygraph every ninja in the village. Any injured ninja will be exempt until they have recovered and they will all be on lockdown. All missions will be called off and any teams already out will be called back. All operations will be shut down until we have sorted the problem." She explained the action to be taken. "We will have to stop the flow of trade in and out of the village. The ninja exams will have to be postponed. Those ninja of high status within the village will be interrogated first, including all medics." She noted. "Shizune please ask Ibiki to meet me in my office and recall all teams sent out on any missions. Sakura your medic duties will be postponed for today. Please go and inform Kotetsu and Izumo at the gate as well as asking Fugaku to meet me in my office." She ordered.

"Hai!" We both yelled before disappearing to attend to our duties. I ran quickly through the streets. When I arrived at the gate I saw a team just leaving for a mission. "Hey you. Stop before you leave the village." I shouted to them stopping in front of them. The leader of the ANBU team walked up to me.

"Would there be a reason for postponing our mission?" He asked, his deep, velvety voice sounding very familiar.

"All missions have been cancelled by order of the Hokage. The village is under a Code Black." I told him. The shinobi removed his mask revealing the face of Itachi.

"I don't think the Hokage wants this mission cancelled, Sakura." He replied.

"Yes she does. Every ninja in the village has to have a polygraph test, especially ANBU." I informed him. It dawned on his face just how serious the Code Black was.

"Go back into the village. The mission is cancelled." He ordered his team and they walked back into the gates of the village. "There is a spy in ANBU?" He asked me now that they were in private.

"I'm not at any discretion to disclose any information to anyone other than the appropriate people. However I am about to go visit your father at the Konoha police headquarters if you would like to come along and listen." I casually told him as I walked towards Izumo and Kotetsu. "The Hokage had ordered that all trade into and out of Konoha be stopped. All ninja out on missions will be sent back promptly. Konoha is under Code Black." I told them. Without delay they closed the gate as soon as we had walked back into the village.

"Sakura I must go and report at ANBU headquarters." He said, softly kissing my forehead before running to his destination.

I made my way quickly to the Konoha police headquarters. "I need to speak with Fugaku-sama." I asked loudly once I had walked. All work in the office stopped as everyone turned to look at me.

"He is currently in a meeting which will end in half an hour. You can wait here if you like." One of the workers told me pointing to a set of chairs by the front desk.

"I have been sent with an urgent message from the Hokage which cannot wait for some meeting to finish." I shouted, getting angry now. His face paled, obviously knowing of my temper.

"His office is on the second floor. It's the room at the end of the corridor, you can't miss it." He said quietly, pointing to a set of stairs. I walked straight to the stairs and ran up them quickly. Walking down the corridor, I found a door near the end marked with Fugaku Uchiha, Chief of Police.

I knocked on the door and walked straight in. Fugaku looked up as I walked though, a frown set on his face. "Sakura, can you not see that I'm in the middle of a meeting? You will have to wait until it's finished." He told me, a hint of anger in his voice.

"I'm afraid this cannot wait Fugaku-sama. Konoha is under a strict Code Black. Tsunade requires you in her office immediately." I said, my patience wearing thin.

"How serious is it?" He asked, obviously wondering whether he could finish his meeting first.

"To the highest level. Even ANBU are being investigated." I replied without hesitation. His face fell slack before he called his meeting off and quickly followed me to Tsunade's office.

There was already a small congregation of people within Tsunade's office when we arrived. "As you all already know Konoha is under a code black situation. Every single ninja will have to undertake a polygraph. I will conduct the polygraphs of all high officials." She explained once we were all assembled.

"Who will polygraph you Hokage-sama?" Fugaku asked.

"I'm the Hokage of this village. I doubt that I'm the Iwa spy Fugaku!" She snapped at him as though he had just said the most foolish thing ever, which he had of course. "If I was Iwa's spy, Konoha would already be under Iwa's jurisdiction." She explained further. "Shizune have you called back all teams already out on missions?" Tsunade inquired.

"I have sent out the order to all teams. All have replied but one. Itachi's ANBU team did not receive the message. The hawk came back original note still attached. Should we dispatch a team to find them?" Shizune replied.

"No. They are in the village. I saw them leaving Konoha when I went to inform Izumo and Kotetsu. I stopped them from leaving for their mission." I told them before anyone else could speak.

"Good. All communication and trade into and out of the village is to cease from now until I say otherwise. Now go sit outside of my office. I want to start these investigations now. Ibiki if you could stay, I'll do your polygraph first." The rest of us walked out of the office and sat in the chairs opposite the door.

**OOO**

I watched Shizune walk out of the door, slightly pale after her polygraph test. "Sakura, she's asked if you could go in now." She said quietly. My turn. I had known it was my turn, I was the only one left from the group who hadn't had the test yet. I had no idea what a polygraph test consisted of but I knew that I was about to find out.

"Hello Sakura. Please sit down in the chair." My eyes were drawn to the chair sitting in the centre of the dark room. The windows had been blocked out and the lights dimmed. "I need you to wear this bracelet. The colour will tell me whether you are lying or not." She said handing me a silver bracelet, which I slipped onto my wrist straight away. "Now I'm going to ask you a number of questions. The first few will require ordinary answers before I move onto some harder questions. Do you understand the details of this polygraph?" She explained.

"I understand." I said, answering her first question.

"Good. Is your name Haruno, Sakura?" She asked, probably just getting me into the swing of things.

"Yes." The bracelet started to turn red and heat up. "Oh, bum. Sorry Shishou, forgot I was married. No, it's Uchiha, Sakura." I said rectifying my mistake. The bracelet turned silver again, cooling down.

"It's quite alright. Were you married to Itachi Uchiha on May 18th?" she reassured me before asking me another question.

"Yes." I replied simply. I would never forget that date, even if I didn't remember much of the day itself.

"When did you two last have sexual intercourse?" She inquired, loudly.

"Shishou! Why ask something like that!?" I almost shouted, blushing furiously.

"Just answer the question Sakura!" She yelled back, her temper starting to appear.

"Fine, last night." I told her slightly louder than I should have. I was sure that everyone had heard that part of my polygraph. At least Fugaku and Mikoto would be happy with that.

"Okay now we shall be getting onto the harder questions." She told me quietly. "Where were you born?" She asked.

"These are supposed to be harder questions?" I asked, answering her question with a question. She just glared at me. "Sorry. I was born within Konoha." I replied sheepishly.

"Where were your parents born?" She fired the next question without any break.

"My mother was born in the middle of the park in Konoha; she never shuts up about it. My father . . ." I hesitated, not knowing quite what to say. "I think he was born in Konoha." I said truthfully.

"Think is not good enough. Tell me what you know." She demanded.

"He doesn't talk much about the past. So I would assume that he was born in Konoha, but I don't actually know if he was." I explained further.

"Good, when you conduct this yourself you will have to be demanding for answers maybe more than I have just been with you, but I know where your father was born so I won't press any further." She told me before moving on. "Have you had any contact with ninja outside of the village?"

"Well yes, it is part of my job." I replied, thinking she had just asked me the most obvious question.

"No I'm mean outside of missions, meeting them just casually." She explained properly.

"Well a few, but only really ninja from Suna, which I'm guessing is not a threat." I said, answering the new aspect of the question.

"No it isn't." She sighed before moving on. "I guess that I have no more questions for you then. Go and ask the others back in would you?" She said wearily. I gave her back the bracelet before quickly following her instructions.

Once everyone had settled themselves back into Tsunade's office she lifted her head up to look at us from her desk. "I have deemed you all safe. I know I can't carry out every polygraph test within Konoha and still carry out my duties as Hokage. I am going to trust each of you to carry out the polygraph in your chosen area. Ibiki you will examine ANBU, Fugaku I'm giving you the police force, Shizune will make a start on the Chunin and Sakura will investigate the Medics. I will be polygraphing the Jonins." She then reached into her desk and pulled out a number of the bracelets which she had used for the polygraph. "Use these to help your investigations. Use anybody you have deemed safe if you need any help." She told us before handing each of us one of the bracelets. "At the end of each day I want you to compile a list of people whom you deem safe and those who need to be put on a watch list. If anyone is presented as a major threat, bring them straight to me. Ibiki and Fugaku you may leave and Fugaku do not treat anyone within your clan any less than you would if they were not. They may have been turned." Fugaku nodded before taking his leave with Ibiki. I remained in her office as she hadn't dismissed me yet. "Shizune and Sakura, we need to work out what we will do with the hospital. I propose that all medics take paid leave while they wait for their polygraph. We have to be certain that they are not traitors before we can let them loose on our ninja."

"But what about the patients?" I asked. "If there are no medics and the three of us are busy polygraphing people who will look after them?" I inquired further.

"That was what I needed to talk about." Tsunade replied. "I propose that Shizune takes the morning shift, from 5:00am till 1:00pm, while investigating Chunin in the afternoon. Sakura you will take the afternoon shift, from 1:00pm till 9:00pm, while investigating the Medics in the morning and I will take the night shift, from 9:00pm till 5:00am, investigating the Jonin during the day."

"But won't that mean that you'll lose sleep? And all of us will be overworked; the hospital is too large for one person to man for 8 hours, Tsunade-sama." Shizune asked.

"I won't be able to sleep much anyway. But I will make sure that I get a few hours shut eye. As soon as Sakura deems a Medic safe, they will be put on the rota. As for the solution to being overworked, there isn't one." She said simply.

"We could send certain patients home earlier than we normally would. If they can walk and are not in a life threatening situation I think they should be able to go home, as long as they check in every few days. Those who can't walk but are still not in a life threatening condition can be sent home once a few more medics have been put on the rota. We will need to have a new position for house calls on the rota for this, but it would ease the pressure a little." I offered a small solution.

"That sounds very good. I will adhere to your solution. I will ask for a mixture of ninja and civilian medics to be tested as well. Civilian medics will be good for the civilian A&E, while we will need a few medic-nins for the ninja injuries when they start to go out on missions again." She explained to me. "Shizune could you arrange for all of the medics to arrive at the hospital in 10 minutes? I'm going to also ask if you can start by investigating Naruto and Sasuke today. I have a special mission for them. After that please investigate the rest of the Chunin in rank order. I'm going to the hospital to sort everything out there now." She then rose from her desk and walked out of her office. I quickly followed.


	18. Chapter 18

_**A/N:**__ Please tell me about any spelling or grammar mistakes. As a writer I'm always looking to improve._

**Chapter 18**

I walked quickly behind Tsunade in the lunch room of the hospital. It was the only room which would be large enough to hold all of the medics at once. Tsunade took her place at the front and called everyone to attention as I stood off to the side. "Every medic is going to have paid leave." At that comment the hall filled with sound once again. "Shut up!" She shouted to again everyone's attention again. "Think of this as a holiday which applies to everyone. Someone will be sent to find you for an examination with Sakura. She will then place you back on the rota if you pass. There is a new system coming into place and we need to check if you are still appropriate for the job." She told them, obviously not wanting to alert anyone too badly. "You are all dismissed, including those who were currently working." Stunned the medics slowly started chatting before slowly getting up to leave the hospital. Obviously many rumours would start circulating soon. It was inevitably going to happen everywhere, since all trade had stopped within and with Konoha.

Tsunade turned back to me "Don't want to scare away any traitors?" I asked, referring to the excuse she had used for this sudden situation.

"No, I don't want any chance of them escaping. Now shall we move onto sorting which patients can be sent home now, which ones can be sent home in the next few weeks, and which ones must stay in the hospital." She suggested. I nodded. First we walked into the A&E to deal with anyone there, hopefully all of these people would be able to go straight home.

**OOO**

I arrived back home and collapsed in the hallway. Today had been hard and stressful. I had to process a large amount of patients on my own, meaning I had no chakra left. My stomach growled. Great, I was tired as hell and starving. Someone walked through the front door. "Sakura! Are you okay?" Itachi called out to me. He knelt down beside me and lifted my face to look at his.

"No." I said simply. I carried on, knowing that he wanted a full explanation. "I'm tired, hungry and overworked." I then pouted. He frowned slightly before picking me up bridal style. I assumed that he was taking me to the kitchen but then he started walking up stairs, which confused me. I decided not to think about it any further and snuggled more closely into him.

Itachi put me down carefully onto a large soft thing, I think it might have been our bed. "Get some rest Sakura. I shall be back up soon with some dinner." He then left the room and I promptly fell asleep.

The opening and closing of a door started to bring me out of dreamland. What really woke me up was the smell of Beef Udon Noodles. "Yay food!" I exclaimed weakly.

"Are you able to eat or do you need some help?" Itachi asked, obviously concerned with my wellbeing. I tried to get up but failed. I groaned before a pair of hands came to help me sit up. I held out my hands for the dish but Itachi just frowned. He picked up the dish and chopsticks up himself. "Open wide." He told me, picking up some of the noodles. I stubbornly kept my lips closed. "Sakura!" He groaned. I shook my head in reply. I wasn't a baby. "Fine we will do this the hard way." He said before popping the food in his mouth. He then leant over and placed his lips over mine. I was shocked and so started kissing him back at his insistence. His tongue traced mine asking for entrance, which I granted. Once my mouth was open enough he transferred the food he had kept in his mouth into mine and pulled away. I glared at him before chewing and swallowing. "Now if you don't want that to happen again I suggest you let me feed you properly." He said once I had finished my mouthful.

He picked up another mouthful and offered it to me. I opened up my mouth reluctantly and he placed it in, allowing me time to chew and swallow before following with the next mouthful. It carried on like this until the dish was empty. Itachi picked up the other dish and promptly began feeding himself.

I felt much better now that I had food in my system, I even managed to stand up and walked over to the draws. Itachi glared at me, but let me continue what I was doing. Inside I found all of my clothes from the Uchiha mansion. It seems that Itachi had moved all of our stuff into our new house yesterday. After looking through everything I managed to find some nightwear to sleep in. I walked back to the bed and got under the covers. Itachi followed my example soon after.

"Sorry for scaring you like that." I told him as he climbed under the covers. "Today has been really tough. I may come home like this again." I warned him. "I have to polygraph people in the mornings, work an 8 hour shift in the afternoon at the hospital, on my own, and have a meeting with Tsunade at the end of each day." I explained the format of my day from now on.

Itachi frowned slightly. "That's the way it's going to be from now until we find the traitors. This is what war is like." He said quietly. He shifted closer to me. "Promise me that you will take brakes. I don't want to find you like that again too often." He whispered into my ear.

"Don't take any long term missions." I whispered back. We both didn't want to lose each other. "Kiss me." I asked as my lips searched for his. He complied with my wish, kissing me slowly and gently at first, slowly building up the intensity of the kiss. He broke off and looked into my eyes, almost asking for permission. I nodded slightly, knowing that it was exactly what we both needed.

**OOO**

I woke in the morning lying against the naked chest of Itachi. I looked at the time on the clock and knew that I would have to get up soon. However for the time being I was very comfy and not willing to move. I settled in for one of those lazy mornings, wishing that the moment could last forever.

I felt Itachi's breathing pattern change slightly. He had just woken up. "Morning." I mumbled in a slightly cheery voice. Itachi wrapped his arms around me and brought me in for kiss, which soon turned very heated after remembrance of last night. We eventually broke apart for oxygen.

"Morning." He replied, slightly breathless. He then looked at the clock himself. "It seems like we will have to get up soon." He commented on the obvious. "But I think that we have a little more time for a bit more." No sooner than those words had been said, were his lips back on mine again.

During our heated exchange Itachi rolled us over so that he was on top of me, our unclothed bodies rubbing against each other, heating up the scene even more.

The alarm clock started beeping, the sound we had been waiting for since we had woken up. We broke apart at the sudden noise. Itachi grumbled before hitting the snooze button. We picked up from where we left off straight away. When the alarm next went off five minutes later Itachi calmly reached his hand out and put it on snooze again, without braking our make-out session. Itachi started placing kisses down my jaw and neck and along my shoulders, as I kissed his chin, ears and neck respectively. Itachi came back up again and kissed every inch of my face before kissing my mouth once again, casually biting my lips occasionally. Soon tongues were involved once again.

The alarm sounded again. Suddenly I was angry with it for disturbing mine and Itachi's personal time. I broke from our kissing, whipped my arm out and smashed the clock with a chakra infused hand. Once the red had faded from my vision I realised what I had just done. "Sorry, I'll buy a new clock on my way home to work." I said now that the moment was broken.

"It's alright, we probably needed to get up anyway." He said. "Would you like a shower first?" He asked me. I shook my head and motioned for him to take it first. He pecked my lips before getting up and headed towards the bathroom.

I stretched out along the bed, knowing that my muscles would be slightly stiff from our activities last night. I lay on the bed starring at the ceiling, thinking. I thought about the circumstances which brought us together. It was funny how I had been so resistant back then; I now knew that I had been acting like a stubborn child. What we had together now was the best thing I had ever felt. Even though I had only opened up fully to him the last few days, I knew that our love would stand the test of time. Okay I knew it was corny but that was how I felt right now in this moment. I never wanted that feeling to end. My eyes then fell to the smashed up clock. I groaned, knowing that I would have to get up and bin it. I waited a few more minutes before doing so. Our morning together was very similar to yesterday; shower, make breakfast in-between kissing before parting ways at the edge of the Uchiha compound.

I made my way towards Tsunade's office, this first morning we had all been called to meet up so everyone knew how the next few weeks would be structured. I took the route through the market, knowing that I would have to buy that clock sooner rather than later. I walked into the shop which I knew sold household appliances. I walked over to the section which held alarm clocks. I picked up one which looked similar to the one I had smashed up this morning and paid for it. Leaving the shop I glanced at my watch and saw that I was going to be late. I took to the rooftops and ran, knowing that this would be the only way to get there on time.

I slipped through her window and saw that everyone else was already in the room. "Gomen Shishou." I apologised before falling in rank with the other investigators. I looked to the other side of the room and saw Naruto giving me a strange look, while I wondered why he was here, along with the rest of team 7.

Tsunade gave me a slight disapproving glare before starting her speech. "I have called you all here this morning to assign you to a very important mission." She said addressing the other group. She then turned to us. "I am assigning each of you a person to collect the people from your group for questioning." She then turned back to team 7. "As you already know we have a serious breach in the higher ranks of our ninja from Iwa. Yes this may seem like a simple D rank mission, but because of the situation behind it I've made it an S-class mission, I know that this is above some of your payrolls, but you were all people I knew I could trust indefinitely. That is the reason you have been assigned this mission." She then started to talk to everyone in the room as a whole group. "Tenzou, you will be assigned to me. You will have the job of collecting the Jonin of the village. Sai you will have the job of finding the ANBU in the village, reporting to Ibiki. Sasuke, you will be working with your father and the Konoha police. Naruto you will be assigned to Sakura from 8:00am till 1:00pm and to Shizune from 1:00pm till 6:00pm. For Sakura you will be collecting Medics and for Shizune you will be collecting Chunin. Does everyone understand their job?" She asked team 7. They all responded, affirming it. "Ibiki, Fugaku I expect to see you in my office at 6:30 sharp. Sakura, could you tell Shizune that she is also required at that time. Sakura I will meet with you at the hospital when we swap shifts. Now go do your jobs." She ordered, dismissing us from her office.

"Hai, Tsunade-sama." We all replied before joining with our assigned partner and moving towards our destinations. I grabbed Naruto and dragged him to the hospital. I had made this my base, the medics new it well and I had an office here.

"Sakura!?" Shizune called out to me as I passed her on my way to her office. "What are you doing here? It's not your shift yet." She asked me.

"I'm making the hospital my base because I have on office here, and the medics know it well." I told her in response. "Tsunade-sama wants you in her office at 6:30 for the arranged meeting."

"What will you do about the meeting?" She inquired, while looking at Naruto strangely.

"Tsunade-sama and I will meet together when we are swapping our shifts. Naruto is here because he's our lackey. His mission is to collect the people we want to investigate. I have him in the mornings, collecting the medics. You have him in the afternoons, collecting the Chunin." I said explaining Naruto's mission in detail, knowing that he might need it from Tsunade's brief description.

"Okay, I'll leave you too it. I have another patient to see. There are so many." She complained before walking away to do her duty. Naruto and I carried on walking towards my office in silence. We both knew how serious this situation was. It was weird walking next to Naruto and not having him shouting and making jokes, but that was how serious the situation was. It had caused even him to become a serious ninja.

We entered my office to see several large piles of files on my desk. I opened one of the ones on the top and saw that it was one of the medics file. It seems as though Tsunade had given me every medics file last night during her shift. And from the looks of the post-it notes on the front she had also sorted out an order of which to examine. I decided to both hide and thank her for it. It would save me the time of having to pull them all out and order them, meaning I could get onto interviewing them more quickly. But I was going to hide her for working too hard, she was always doing more than necessary, even if she did try to avoid the paperwork.

"Naruto, Can you help me move these files over to that corner of the room?" I asked as I picked up one of the piles and started moving it.

"Yeah, want it moved in a particular order?" He questioned as he walked up to my desk.

"Um, I think the piles with the highest numbers first." I answered him as I walked back up to the desk to grab the next pile. Naruto picked up another pile and moved it to the area I had designated.

With Naruto's help we managed to move all of the piles in just a couple of minutes. We had left the first pile on my desk which I now moved onto the floor, within my reach from sitting at the desk. I picked up the first file and looked at whose it was. "Naruto can you bring Akemi to me." I ordered. "It seems Tsunade wants me to interview her first." I commented as Naruto nodded, understanding his instructions. "She lives at 23 Ormands way in the civilian district." Naruto then fled from the room, finding the medic I needed. While I was waiting for her I decided to look through her file. Today was going to be a very long day.


	19. Chapter 19

_**A/N:**__ Due to my acceptance into university I am posting a second chapter today. Enjoy._

**Chapter 19**

It had been two days of grilling medics and treating patients. It was beginning to drain me a little, but I was starting to get used to it at the same time. Within the two mornings I had so far, I had managed to interview seven medics. This put two civilian medics on each shift with the other on reserve for house calls, with immediate effect. If I could get another two medics on the house call rota, we could send a few more people home, making it slightly easier on those who were working in the hospital.

Today I was interviewing one civilian medic, two ninja medics and one of the technicians. Maybe I could get through a few more if I was lucky. We were going to need a couple more technicians soon and some more of the civilian medics. Although if the state of me, Shizune and Tsunade were anything to go by we might be needing a few more medic-nins, slowly but surely ninjas were being sent out on missions again. They were all either small things civilians needed within the village or very high ranking missions involving the up and coming war. As a village we were now being very careful.

Someone knocked on the door carefully. "Come in." I called out to whoever was on the other side, although I had a very good idea who it was going to be. I looked up as they entered the room. "Ah Misaki. Take a seat please. There's nothing to worry about. I'm just going to ask a few questions to make sure you're still suitable for the job." I pulled the bracelet for the eighth time from my desk. "I am going to ask if you could wear this for the duration of the interview. All it will do is help me discern the answers you give me. First of all I'm going to ask you a few simple questions, just to get you comfortable." I gave her all of the necessary information. She slipped the band over her hand onto her wrist. Once she seemed settled I began. "You're name is Misaki Kiyomizu, correct?"

"Yes it is." She answered, quietly. She seemed even more nervous than the others had.

"Did you start your medical training from the age of 20?" I asked her, referring to her file as I asked it, deliberately getting the age wrong by a year.

"No, I was 21." She answered swiftly, always a fairly good sign. I nodded before carrying on, making a few notes.

"You only officially became a medic two years ago. Which department were you first put into?" I asked her.

"I think it was the children's ward." She answered hesitantly.

"Which land are you originally from?" I asked, knowing that this would be a crucial question.

"Fire." She answered looking down at the floor. The bracelet on her wrist started to light up red. I knew that there was now a slight burning sensation on her wrist.

"Which land are you originally from?" I asked calmly again.

"I j..just t..told you. I'm f..from Fire." She stuttered this time as she answered, looking at the desk.

"And I know you are lying. The bracelet has turned red and I'm sure your wrist is burning slightly now from the heat. So if you would like to stop that sensation I would advise that you tell me the truth now." I said leaning back in my chair, anger starting to seep into my voice. She stayed silent so I decided to prompt her again, for the sake for her wrist. "Tell me which land you originate from!" I shouted, standing up and leaning across the table.

She looked up at me fearfully before answering. "Iwa." She replied quietly. "I'm from a small village on the border though." She said as though, it was a slight excuse for her origins. It would mean that there would be a slight merge of culture from both lands, but it was still part of Iwa.

"Thank you." I said sitting back into my seat, this would most defiantly put her onto the watch list, if not I might have to take her straight to Tsunade.

"I'm not a traitor, I swear." She exclaimed. Interested in what she had to say I let her continue. "I've considered myself from Fire ever since we moved here 9 years ago. I completed all of my medic training within Fire and all of my exams within Konoha." She insisted, I glanced at her file and saw that it was as she had said, but it could not account for anything she may have come across while in Iwa. "If this is about the incident with Hatake-sama I swear that was an accident . . ."

"What incident with Kakashi?" I interrupted, wanting to know exactly what she meant.

She gulped at my words and realised she had just told me something that I didn't know about. "Um, I forgot to administer Hatake-sama's Morphine." She said hesitantly. "I didn't do it on purpose, I swear. That day I was really distracted with other things. I had made several other mistakes." She explained, again insisting her innocence. She wasn't putting herself in a very good position.

I sighed before deciding that I would have to do what I wanted to do least with one of our medics. "I think I'm going to have to take you to see Tsunade-sama." She looked up at me fearfully again. "Naruto!" I called out to him, I knew he was sitting on the other side of the door. Once he had entered I explained to him what I needed him to do. "Naruto, can you go to Tsunade-sama and explain that I'm on my way with Misaki Kiyomizu." He nodded, before quickly disappearing.

I walked over to Misaki and motioned for her to stand up. She complied with my motioned instructions. I took the bracelet off of her wrist and placed it into my pocket. I then wrapped my arm around hers and almost marched her out of the building. To any onlookers it would look as though we were two friends walking through the streets of Konoha, although if they looked closely enough to our expressions, they would see anything but that.

When we arrived to the Hokage tower I marched her straight up to Tsunade's office. I saw Naruto standing outside of her door. "She said to walk straight in." He informed me as we approached him. I nodded, giving him a small frown before walking straight into Tsunade's office with Misaki in tow.

As we entered Tsunade turned around from the window to face us. She must have been looking at the village and turned when she heard the door. "Misaki, please take a seat." She said motioning to the chair opposite her side of the desk. "Sakura, care to tell me what happened in the 'interview'?" She asked me once Misaki had made herself comfortable, well as much as she could be in the situation.

I frowned before answering her question. "There have been a few issues raised." I paused before continuing, finding the right words to say. "Misaki lied about her origins. She originally came from a small village on the border of Iwa." Her eyebrows rose at this. Not quite expecting it. "There have also been a few incidents at the hospital, which she has admitted to. One was including Kakashi-sensei." She seemed even more surprised if it was even possible at this point.

"Well Misaki, I think you should start by explaining each and every incident." She plainly ordered Misaki. She seemed to look slightly regretful before gathering herself together.

She looked up to Tsunade before quickly looking away. "Um, I was attending to my rounds the night before we were given paid leave. On this day I had been distracted by the recent breakup with my boyfriend. I missed several of the patients on my list, a few others were given the wrong dose of the drug that needed to be administered to them. I had walked in to check Hatake-sama, but forgot to check his chart to see if he needed anything administering. That night I also mixed up a few of the test results for some of the patients." She then finished or seemed incapable of carrying on.

Tsunade looked to me before speaking again. "Misaki, could you please wait outside my office for a few minutes." She told her. Misaki nodded and stood up to leave. "Naruto!" She called out. She carried on when he popped his head through the doorway. "Please make sure that Misaki, stays outside of my office. I don't want her to leave or to speak to anyone." He nodded and went back outside to watch over Misaki, closing the door behind him. "Sakura, I think we need to discuss this situation."

"Yes, I don't think she is a traitor, but these situations don't paint her in that light." I gave her my opinion.

"I know what you mean, she doesn't come across as a spy, but then again most of them don't." She paused thinking everything through. "I don't think we should take any drastic action straight away. We should watch her very closely. I would advise putting her on your shift once you have a few more medics. Restrict her with the patients she is allowed to see and stick to her like a moth to a light. I will place an ANBU to follow her whenever she isn't in the hospital, on her shift. "Sakura could you call Misaki back in?" She asked me.

I nodded and walked out of her office. "Misaki?" I asked gently, bringing her out of her thoughts. "Tsunade-sama would like to speak to you now." I told her, allowing her back into the room. Misaki stood in the middle of the room looking very uncomfortable.

"Misaki, we are going to give you the benefit of the doubt. You will have to wait a few weeks before you can be put back on the rota. For at least the first week you will be monitored." She explained to Misaki. "You may leave." She dismissed her. "Sakura, send Naruto with some sake, will you?" She asked. I nodded knowing that we all probably needed a little. I then left the room, going back to my job.

"Naruto." I whispered as I closed the door. He nodded and gave me a hug before we sped back to the hospital.

**OOO**

I walked home after one of the hardest days yet. All of that business with Misaki had taken most of my energy out of me, but I had still carried on anyway. I even took a soldier pill during my hospital shift.

I walked up to mine and Itachi's house. On the door was a small note. On closer inspection I saw that it had been addressed to me. From the handwriting I knew it had to have been from Itachi. I knew that there could be only one reason for his note.

_Sakura, _

_I have been sent on an urgent mission._

_It is going to take at least three days._

_Please take care of yourself while I am gone._

_Itachi._

When I finished reading the note I calmly sat on the ground and leaned against the house. I felt something that I had never felt for someone whom I knew could handle their own in a fight. It was the emotion of fear. I was scared of the thought that he may never come back to me. I knew I was being stupid, but I still couldn't help this feeling.

I wasn't sure how long I had been sitting there but eventually the world around me turned dark. As soon as I noticed this I managed to override my feelings and drag myself into the house. I walked into the kitchen. On the fridge I saw another note, again from Itachi.

_In the fridge are some meals which I made for you._

_You have been invited for dinner with my parents tomorrow._

_I have explained that you will arrive after 9:00pm._

_Itachi._

I felt so much love creep into my heart, making the fear flee. It seemed he didn't want me wasting away while he was gone. I opened the fridge and saw cartons of food which he had cooked, all I had to do was heat it up, try not to burn it and eat it. I saw that he had labelled each carton with a date. That was so sweet and very OCD of him. I almost wanted to eat them in the wrong order just to spite the OCD part of him, but decided that it might be better to stick to his 'regime' to keep a small part of him alive in the house.

I picked out the carton with today's date and heated it up, almost managing to burn it. I ate it quickly before having a long bath, helping me to relax after my long day.

I got into bed and tried to sleep. This I was finding difficult due to the missing warmth that usually lay beside me. I leant over to Itachi's side of the bed and sniffed, taking in his sent. Soon I found myself relaxing into the bed as I drifted off to sleep.

_**A/N:**__ Please review, I like to know your thoughts on the chapter._


	20. Chapter 20

_**A/N:**__ Warning – Large time skips contained._

**Chapter 20**

I walked straight from the hospital to the Uchiha's home, knowing that they would be waiting for me. I walked through the door, knowing that they were expecting me. I took off my shoes and left them in the lobby. "Hello?" I asked the house, raising my voice slightly. I started walking into the rest of the house to let them know that I was here, when Mikoto appeared from the kitchen.

"Sakura." She exclaimed when she saw me. "It's so lovely to see you again." She told me as she embraced me with a hug. "Come into the kitchen for a moment. I was just about to finish dinner."

"It smells wonderful Mikoto-san." I complemented when I walked into the kitchen after her.

"Oh thank you dear." She said as she stood at the stove. "And I thought that I had told you to drop the honorific." She commented.

"Sorry, I slipped back into old habits Mikoto. I think it came from not living with you for the past week." I told her.

"It's quite alright. Could you get me the bowls please?" She asked me. I reached into the cupboard I knew held the china and brought down four of the bowls normally eaten from. It felt weird to think that I had been living here only a few days ago. It had felt like I had been living in mine and Itachi's house for a lifetime, when it had only been about five days. "Could you please get Sasuke and Fugaku for dinner?" She asked me once she had finished serving the food. I nodded and left her to carry out the task she had handed me.

I walked upstairs to Sasuke's room first, knowing that this was the most likely place that I would find him. I knocked on his door when I reached it and walked straight in. Sasuke was lying on his bed with his eyes closed. It seemed that he was asleep. I put my head by his ear. "Wake up!" I shouted before moving my face away from his. Sasuke jumped up and grabbed a Kunai.

"Sakura! Don't do that!" He yelled at me as I just giggled. He put the kunai down, but didn't stop glaring at me.

"Mikoto told me to come and get you for dinner. And when I saw you sleeping there, I couldn't pass up the opportunity!" I told him, starting to laugh even harder than before. He sighed and I managed to still my giggles.

"Dad's been working me really hard, making me get this person and then that person. Give this to Tsunade, fill out some of this paperwork. Do this and do that. He's relentless. I'm never going to work for the Konoha police while he's in charge!" He explained.

"Aww. I feel sorry for you, but I think that Mikoto will be worse if you don't get your butt downstairs to that dining room table now." I told him, only giving him some sympathy. He glared at me before pushing me out of his room before he made his way down the stairs.

I followed behind him, but instead of going to the dining room I went to Fugaku's study. I knocked on the door and waited for an answer. I walked in when I received some acknowledgement. "Fugaku-sama, Mikoto-san sent me to tell you that dinner is ready." I said as he looked up to see me.

"Tell her I will be there in a minute." I nodded and made my way back out of the room and towards the dining room, where everyone was congregating for dinner. "Fugaku-sama said that he will be here in a minute." I said as I sat down at the table. Mikoto nodded and we waited in silence.

A few minutes later Fugaku walked into the room and sat at the table. "Itadakemasu" We all called out now that everyone was seated. We started eating as soon as those words had left our mouths. We ate in silence for a few moments before Fugaku spoke up. "So Sakura, how have your investigations been going?" He asked me.

"Slowly. I can only get through about four people a day since I have to work the afternoon in the hospital." I told him. "We already have one medic on high alert as well." I said as much as I thought I could say. You never knew who was listening in. "How have the other's been doing?" I asked in response interested to know how everything else was going.

"It seems to be alright so far, although there are a few ANBU on a high alert as well. It seems like Shizune is getting through the same number of people a day as you are, although I think she has less people to interview so it seems to be going quicker for her." He explained briefly. "From the looks of things, Konoha will be on code black for the next couple of weeks. Tsunade thinks that we will have to open up again soon, so as to avoid suspicion and to appease the civilians." He told me.

"Yes, Tsunade told me as much when we swapped shifts." I replied. Silence fell again as our conversation came to an end.

"Do you know how long Itachi will be gone for, Sakura?" Mikoto asked me, as though she felt the silence was too over-barring.

"He should be back in two days time, but it was only a rough guideline for the mission length." I told her without hesitation.

"Why don't you stay here while Itachi is gone?" She suggested. While picking up the empty bowls from our meal.

"I don't know." I said hesitantly. I saw Sasuke from the corner of my eye, almost silently pleading me to stay. "Alright, I'll stay for tonight. It would be nice not to have to walk all the way back to my house. My work does take a lot out of me at the moment."

Mikoto smiled at my answer. "Of course it would!" She exclaimed. "Interviewing people all morning before a long shift at the hospital which is short staffed. I think it would take a lot out of anyone." She chatted happily; probably glad to have someone else to talk to again. "I'll make sure that your old room is ready for you, although I don't think much has changed." She smiled again before going off to complete the new housework.

I looked back to the room and saw that Fugaku had slipped off during the commotion. Sasuke stood up and grabbed me, pulling me up from my sitting position. He dragged me up to his room and sat me on his bed. "I'm so glad you're here!" He exclaimed once we were out of ear shot. "I need someone to talk to other than Mother, or take orders from Father." He explained.

"How are things going with Naruto?" I asked curiously. He lay down on the bed sighing. I lay down beside him.

"I haven't seen him properly since our last training session. We both work apart all day and then the rest of the time Naruto spends with Hinata. If I do manage to spend time with him, I'm the third wheel who has a crush on his best mate." He sighed again.

"Man, that's awful." I commented. "Well as they say there are plenty more fish in the sea." Sasuke just glared at me. "I'm not telling you to give up on him just yet, just don't try to hang yourself on a peg that's been taken. I Know the consequences of that, eventually you just fall to the floor."

"Hmm. Yes you do have experience of that." He agreed with me. "Except you were trying to hang yourself off a peg that wouldn't hold you." We both started laughing at his comment.

"I have to agree with you on that one. It not fully the same situation, but it's very similar." I said. "How dead do you usually feel at the end of a day?" I asked cryptically.

"I feel a little more energized than normal tonight." He told me hesitantly. "Why'd you ask?" He asked me in return.

"Wanna spar?" I asked cutting to the chase. He shrugged.

"I suppose, we do need to keep ourselves in top condition after all." He agreed, getting up from his position. He left his room and headed towards the Uchiha training field with me following close behind.

**OOO**

A sound in my room woke me from my slumber. I kept my body relaxed so as to not show the intruder my alertness. I slowly reached under my pillow and found the kunai I normally kept there. This may be one of the people we were looking for.

Itachi had been gone for a full week now and Konoha was slowly opening up for trade again. Most of the ninja had been polygraphed and Shizune was now helping me with the medics, making me get through them faster. Now we were hoping that the traitors would start to show their hand if we relaxed a little.

I felt the figure standing behind me. They leaned over me slightly. I chose this moment to attack. I slashed the kunai at them, hoping to catch their chest. I only succeeded in ripping the person's shirt, it seemed that it was a man.

A hand grabbed my right arm, the one which held the kunai. The attacker used his whole body to pin me down on the bed, while twisting my hand in a way which made me release the kunai. The intruder then turned on the lamp sitting on the bedside table. "Itachi!" I breathed out softly in surprise.

"Now is that really the way you treat your husband when he's only just arrived home from a mission?" He asked, whispering into my ear. I just shook my head as he kissed his way along my jaw. "Good." He said before he ravished my lips. He gave me one of the more passionate kisses we had ever exchanged.

I broke away for air. "When was the last time you ate?" I asked, knowing that ANBU members often came back from missions half starved. He frowned at me like I had just ruined something more important. I made him sit up and went to get up myself to make him some food.

"I'd much rather eat you!" He told me. His hands creeped around my body looking to groap me. I slapped them away and got up from the bed all the same.

"I'm going to make you some food to eat. I'm not letting you waste energy which you don't have." I walked down into the kitchen and started to prep some food. Itachi softly padded in after me.

"If you insist that I eat food first, I will." He said, wrapping his arms around me as I chopped up some vegetables. He then placed a kiss on the top of my head. We stayed silent for the rest of my cooking time. I didn't speak as I was concentrating on cooking, and I think Itachi didn't either, out of fear of me chopping him up.

I sat Itachi down on a chair and held a bite of food out for him. He gave me a questioning look but I just waved the food in his face. Eventually he just gave up and let me feed him. He glared at me the entire time I fed him. "Just getting my own back for that time you hand fed me." I told him as I put the dirty dishes by the sink. "Now come upstairs and sleep." I ordered. "And I mean sleep Itachi. That's all I'm going to be doing."

"Why?" He asked as we walked back into our room. "I know you only have to get up by 8:00." He commented.

"Actually Tsunade wants me in her office at 6:15am tomorrow." I told him. I climbed into the bed and snuggled into Itachi's embrace. "I missed you." I said simply and truthfully.

"I missed you too." He said just before I drifted off.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

I sleepily walked up the stairs in the Hokage tower towards Tsunade's office. I had managed to get up this morning without waking Itachi up, even with the loud insistent alarm going off at 5:45am. He seemed so peaceful, and it looked like he needed the sleep.

I knocked on the door and stepped in when I heard a voice telling me to enter. Inside the room Tsunade was sitting at her desk, three sake cups at her desk. My eyes were then drawn to a red head sitting opposite Tsunade. "Sakura you're 10 minutes late. Take a seat and have a cup of sake, while you're at it." Tsunade said, smiling.

"Sorry Shishou. Isn't it too early in the morning for sake?" I asked, knowing what her answer would be.

"It's never too early for sake, and anyway after what I tell you I think you're going to need it." She commented. The last part she said had me curious. I sat down and picked up the sake, thinking that it might not do any harm just this once. "This is Hotaru." She said motioning to the red-head sitting next to me. I looked more closely and saw that her shoulder length hair was really more of a dark ginger than actually red, she had dark blue eyes which almost verged on a purple colour, she was slightly bustier than me but looked a little shorter. "She will be taking you to see her clan, whom will explain things in much more detail today."

"Which clan is she from?" I asked interrupting her explanation.

"I'm from the Haruno clan." Hotaru said, her voice seemed very familiar. It then dawned on me what she had just said.

"The Haruno clan!?" I burst out, completely confused. "I'm not from a clan, am I? My parents are civilians!" I exclaimed.

"Your mother is a civilian, but your father wasn't always. The Haruno clan is a small clan affiliated with Konoha but has always been a secret clan. They are a bit like root, but more loyal and answerable to the Hokage of the time." Tsunade explained a little more. "The Haruno clan is very matriarchal and so when your father left to live in Konoha as a civilian, they let him. As a man he was never in line to become the head of the clan and neither were any of his children." She told the story of how my father and I came into being in Konoha itself. "However the Haruno clan have decided that it's time you knew about them and their special abilities. I'm sure that Hotaru will explain it in more detail on your way. I have arranged for you to take the week off. Tell no-one about anything from this next week unless you have permission, as far as they are concerned you have been sent on a mission."

Something else clicked in my head as I heard her name for the second time. "Hotaru, you're not who I think you are, are you?" I asked hesitantly as I tried to get the idea around my head.

'_Of course I am.'_ She said in my head. "I'll explain everything in detail once we get on the road." She told me, this time out loud.

"Okay..." I said hesitantly. I was still very confused about the whole situation, which had just cropped up from nowhere.

"I would advise you to go and pack now, since you have a fair journey ahead of you today." Tsunade told me, effectively dismissing the both of us. I nodded and walked out of the office, still a little bit in a daze from the onslaught of information I had just received.

"So can you explain how you're inside my head, but at the same time an actual living real person?" I asked, still trying to get it round my head.

"I don't really want people to over-hear anything. Most things within the clan are very top secret. So I promise to tell you in detail when we have left the gates, but for now let's stick to simpler questions." She replied quickly.

I glared at her, not liking being out of the loop. I knew how stubborn she could be though so I dropped it. "So how exactly are we related?" I asked her, thinking this would be simple enough for her to answer.

"I'm your cousin." She told me. "Your dad and my mum are siblings. We also have another Aunt and two more cousins, and you have another cousin who is my little brother. We have grandparents, and a few cousins once removed. Over all I think there are probably about 30 odd people within the clan. This week I'll just introduce you to all of the main people you need to know, but eventually you will probably come to meet the whole clan. We're just too small to not know everyone, especially since our clan makes up the entire village." She explained the family in a little more detail than I had asked for initially, however it was something I would need to know eventually, why not get it out of the way now.

As Hotaru finished her explanation we were approaching my house. The time had to have been somewhere around 7:30 from the colour of the sky and the activity which had been starting within the streets of Konoha. I walked straight through the front door, taking my shoes off in the entrance. Hotaru followed my lead. I walked straight up to the bedroom, hoping that Itachi had already gotten up and was out of the house.

Obviously luck had escaped me today as I walked in our room to find that Itachi was still changing. He turned around when the door had opened. He stood there without his shirt. I wasn't sure what to do. I hadn't been prepared for this situation. "Morning." Itachi said as he walked over to me. He stopped when he saw Hotaru standing behind me.

"Hello, I'm Hotaru! So nice to actually meet you in person." She said cheerily.

"Hotaru, as in the Hotaru from inside your head?" He quizzed me.

"Yes, don't ask me to explain. I don't know everything myself." I told him as I walked into the room, fully prepared to ignore his shirtlessness. Itachi stared at me before solving that problem by putting his shirt on. "I'm going to be gone for the next week." I told him as I pulled out my pack and started to fill it with things I may need. I decided to pack a few changes of clothes, my small medics pack and some of my favourite weapons.

"You'll need to pack more weapons than that. We'll want to see your full arsenal, so I would also advise packing more comfortable clothing." She then started to rummage through my wardrobe. "And this." She said handing me one of the pretty kimono's Mikoto had bought for me. I packed it along with the matching accessories. I swapped the small medic kit for my extensive one and added all of the weapons I could find, which I was comfortable with using. I also exchanged some of my casual clothing for clothing which could withstand more wear and tear.

"You are not taking any provisions." Itachi noted.

"I won't need them. I..." I trailed off as I didn't know how much I could tell him.

"She's going to meet the rest of the Haruno clan." Hotaru said for me. "We'll teach her a few of our things, and just get to know her." She explained roughly.

"I've never heard of the Haruno clan before, and I thought that Sakura came from a civilian family." Itachi stated.

"That's because we are Konoha's secret clan. Loyal only to the Hokage of the time. We are a very small clan and saw no need to try and compete with the other much larger clans." She answered is unasked question. "Sakura, we have to leave now if we want to arrive on time." She said.

"Okay I'm ready." I told her, although I made no move to actually leave. "Um, can I have a moment alone?" I asked her.

"You have 5 minutes before I come to drag you away from him." She said before she walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs.

"Will I ever get to spend more than a few hours alone with you?" He rhetorically asked me.

"I don't know, but I hope that things might start to settle out a bit once we find the traitor." I answered anyway, knowing that it could turn into war at the end. "And it's not my fault that my long lost secret clan decided to reunite with me now either." I expanded. "I don't like being apart from you for this long either, but we're just going to have to make do." I told him.

He sighed before kissing me softly. "I love you." He told me when we broke apart. "I'll talk to Tsunade while you're away. I shall ask her to give us a day off when you get back." He said before kissing me again, this time with a little more force and passion.

"Do I have to drag your ass down here!?" Hotaru shouted up the stairs, breaking our little bubble.

"I'm coming!" I shouted back down to her. I quickly kissed Itachi before picking up my pack from the floor and leaving the house like a whirlwind.


	22. Chapter 22

**_A/N: _**_sorry accidentally posted up chapter 20 again... here is the real chapter 22! :)_

**Chapter 22**

We walked at a slow civilian pace towards our destination. It seemed that Hotaru wanted to explain a few things to me before we got there. "The Haruno clan has two special abilities, and a high speciality in genjitsu and in medical ninjitsu. As a side effect of most of our techniques we have perfect chakra control." Hotaru told me, starting to explain some of her, our clans' abilities.

"So what are the two abilities?" I asked her interested to know what skills I may be able to unlock.

"Well not everyone has both of them. Females are more likely to have them than males and are more likely to be able to wield both of them expertly. This is why our clan is based on a matriarchal system, because they are generally the more powerful ninja. However there are a few exceptions." She was obviously starting with the basics and then working her way up. "The first will be of more interest to you because we already know that you have this one. We call it Eolas. This jitsu allows us to connect through our minds. It is naturally formed between two young children, often who are close to each other. The link is strongest between these two people, however it can be used between anyone within the clan whom also holds this jitsu." She explained this one in great detail.

"I'm guessing that we made this link as young children." I half asked, half stated.

"Yes, when we were very small we used to spend a lot of time together before your parents decided that they wanted to live in Konoha." She told me.

"Why did you let me believe that you only existed inside of my head?" I asked her quietly, wanting to know the truth.

"I wasn't allowed to tell you the truth and it was the easiest explanation which you came up with yourself." She replied just as quietly. "The second technique is actually very rare within our clan. To obtain it you need to be an expert in chakra control and to posses all five chakra types. This jitsu allows you to take complete control of your surroundings." She started to explain, changing the subject.

"What do you mean by take complete control of your surroundings?" I asked, still a little confused about this second ability.

"Well you can control all of the natural elements around you. So you can control things like the weather and earth, including plant life. This is why we call it the Elemental-jitsu." I looked at her shocked. "The first taught our clan a few of his techniques to aid the jitsu." She explained for me. "Well here we are." She said stopping just in front of a bustling village.

"Wow, so this is where our clan lives!" I exclaimed. "I wish I had grown up knowing about this place." I told her.

"Well while you're here, you will meet the most important people within our clan. We'll teach you how to use the mind-share jitsu and find out if you posses the Elemental-jitsu." She explained. "How about we go meet Tomoko-baa-chan?" She asked me. I nodded in reply and so she started to lead me through the village. "Tomoko-baa-chan is our grandmother and the current elder of the clan. She's very kind and very wise. Our Aunt, Sayuri, is the leader of the clan. She possesses both of our clan abilities. I'll introduce you to some of the other's later tonight at the party."

"Party?" I asked. "No-one told me about any party!" I exclaimed.

"I just assumed you'd figured that one out. Why did you think I had you pack that pretty kimono?" She asked rhetorically.

"I guess that I was just shocked about everything that I'm not really thinking properly." I said sheepishly. I stopped in my tracks as we approached a large building. "Who lives there?" I asked, amazed at the beauty of the house.

"Nobody, it's the meeting house for the whole village. There is one large room on the bottom floor to fit everyone from the village in and a few smaller rooms upstairs for smaller groups. It's sometimes used for medical purposes as well." She told me.

"Hey Hotaru-chan!" Someone called from behind us. "Didn't know that you were back yet! When were you planning on finding me?" The boy shouted as he approached us.

"I only just entered the village and I'm busy!" She yelled back at him.

"Ow." He said rubbing his ear. "No need to yell when I'm standing right next to you." He replied. "So who's this you've got with you? She's very pretty!" He commented. I laughed, flattered. He couldn't have been much older than 10 maybe 12. He had bright ginger hair and the same eyes as Hotaru.

"I'm Sakura." I said bending down to speak more at his level. "And it's very nice to meet you." He immediately blushed and hid behind Hotaru.

"This is Daichi, my little brother." She explained. "Daichi, this is Sakura, our cousin from Konoha, she's the person I said would be staying with us for a little while. Now buzz off, I have to take her to see Tomoko-baa-chan." She told him.

"Okay! I'll go tell mum that you're home!" He yelled, running off to somewhere else in the village.

"Sorry about him. He can get over excitable at times. Now let's get inside this building before anyone else comes over to us." She said pulling me towards the entrance of the building. We walked up the stairs in silence. Hotaru pulled me past a number of doors; finally she stopped in front of one and knocked. She walked straight in without waiting for a reply. "Ohio Tomoko-baa-chan, Sayuri-chan." She said bowing in respect. "I brought Sakura-chan back like you requested."

I walked in behind Hotaru and was greeted by two smiling women. Both had the same dark blue/purple eyes as Hotaru. The younger woman had dark red hair and I assumed was Sayuri and the older had greying bright ginger hair, whom I assumed was Tomoko-baa-chan. "Hello, it's very nice to meet both of you." I said, bowing in respect.

"Very polite, I can see that your father has brought you up well." Tomoko-baa-chan said, acknowledging me.

"I'm Sayuri, as I'm sure Hotaru-chan has already explained that I'm the head of our small clan. Hotaru will show you around the village this morning and after lunch we shall get started on your training. You'll need to take her to the small training field." She smiled at me before I was dragged out of the room by Hotaru.

"She didn't give me very much time to show you the village." Hotaru commented before she started to take me to see all of the important places in the village.

**OOO**

"This is our smallest training field, we have about 3 in total. The largest is normally used for classes for the small children. The medium is used for small groups who want a serious sparing session and the small one is normally used for things like one on one teaching, and for small sparing matches." Sayuri explained to me once we had arrived. There were only three of us here, Sayuri, Hotaru and me. "Did you bring all of your weapons?" She asked me. I nodded knowing exactly where they were all hidden on my person. "I would like to watch you spar with Hotaru first. And I'm going to ask Hotaru to refrain from using any of our clan's abilities. It will make the fight slightly more equal and give me an advantage to see how you can really fight from a distance." She explained. Hotaru nodded as I got into a fighting stance opposite her.

Hotaru wasted no time before attacking me. I moved away and immediately threw a couple of Kunai at her, which she dogged expertly. I placed paper bombs onto two of the trees which I pushed off as lunged towards her. I brought chakra into my fists and punched towards her with one fist, while tactically placing my other fist. As expected she dogged my first punch but moved herself into the path of the other fist. Her side collided with my hidden fist with a large impact, braking at least one rib if not three. She moved away from me, to heal her ribs presumably, falling directly into my trap. I didn't give her any chance as I brought my hands together to perform the seal which would activate the paper bombs on the trees. The explosion blew her towards me.

I grabbed out to catch her arm, aiming to break it. As I grasped it, it turned into a log. I then ducked as I heard the slight whooshing sound of a weapon hurtling towards me. As I ducked I turned my body round and brought up my leg to meet her arm, concentrating chakra slightly in my foot. As they clashed the weapon flew out of her hand as her arm broke from the force I had used. I then pinned her to the ground and put a kunai at her throat.

"I concede." Hotaru said effectively ending the match which I had just won. I got up and helped her up, grabbing the arm which wasn't broken. She winced from her broken ribs.

"Do you need any help healing those ribs?" I asked her.

"No, I'll be fine. I can heal myself internally." She said. I looked a little shocked. I had never heard of any medic being able to do that. She chuckled slightly before taking in a sharp breath from the pain. "I'll teach you sometime if you like." She mentioned as her side and arm glowed green slightly.

"As you can see our clan is an expert in the arts of healing." Sayuri commented. I turned to face her when she spoke. "I have an idea of your fighting style now. I can see that Tsunade taught you well in her arts. May I have a look at what other things you might use?" Sayuri asked me.

I nodded before taking out my senbon. "I use senbon quite often. If I'm within the village I normally coat them in my own special sedative, which can effectively knock out a fully grown man, instantly." I sat on the ground, pulling out my medical kit and found a vial filled with the sedative. Sayuri sat down beside me. I then pulled out two more vials, one with a light blue liquid and the other with a clear, colourless liquid. "I also have two poisons of my own invention. This light blue poison is a fast acting poison which I use to coat my senbon in outside of the village. The colourless poison is a slow acting poison which is often used in torture or to kill a mark." Sayuri seemed to be quite interested in the liquids I'd made for myself. "I know a few basic jitsus, mainly ones from the academy and a couple of earth one's which Tsunade made me learn after I'd destroyed one too many training fields after one of my tantrums. I also know a couple of basic genjitsu."

Sayuri nodded interested. "I see that you also have quite an extensive medic kit, with a large selection of herbs, bandages and surgical instruments." She commented, picking up a few items. "I'd like to move on to finding out your abilities which you inherited from our clan. I know that you have a fairly good connection with Hotaru-chan here, so it' safe to say that you inherited Eolas. We don't have to work especially hard at this jitsu, but we will have to teach you how to hone those abilities a little bit more. Now I would like to find out what your chakra type is." She explained. Sayuri then pulled out a few pieces of square paper. "This is called chakra paper. You hold it between your fingers and then push a small amount of your chakra into it. Depending on your chakra type it will react differently. If you have a wind type the paper will split in half, it will burn if you have a fire type, it crumbles if you have an earth type. The paper will become soggy if you have a water type or it will crinkle if you have a lightning type." She then demonstrated how to achieve this by pushing her own chakra in a piece of the chakra paper. The paper split into four quarters, each quarter then exhibited the other chakra types. "That happens if you possess all five chakra types. This means you may have the ability to activate our clan's second jitsu. If you do possess all five chakra types, I think that you will have the ability to wield our Elemetal-jitsu since you are already an expert in chakra control." She told me.

"Okay, so all I have to do is push a little of my chakra into this piece of paper?" I asked to clarify taking a slice of paper from her hand.

"Yes, that is all we shall do for now. I would just like to find out what chakra type you own and we shall take it from there." She explained simply to me again.

I held the paper between my fingers and concentrated on pushing my chakra into the object. At first nothing happened, but I tried again, concentrating harder. The paper suddenly split into four, just like Sayuri's piece of paper. One quarter burning up, another crumbling, a third becoming soggy, while the final became all crumpled up. The remains of the paper fell to the ground. "Does this mean you'll teach me the Elemental-jitsu?" I asked quietly, astounded slightly by the results.

"For this week I would like to concentrate on the mind-share jitsu. It would be good for you to be able to control it properly." I felt a little downhearted at her words, and it must have shown on my face. "However I will start to teach you the basics a little later in the week." She mentioned.

"Thank you!" I almost screamed, throwing myself over Sayuri-chan in a hug. "Will we start training now?" I asked excitedly.

"At the moment I want you to start training with Hotaru-chan on Eolas. I will have to take my leave today as I will be busy with plans for the party tonight. I hope to see you later." She then rose from her sitting position and left smiling.

"So, What do you think about Sayuri-chan?" Hotaru asked me once Sayuri was out of ear-shot.

"She's very nice. She seems to be quite wise as well and is very powerful. She possesses the best qualities for being a good leader of a clan." I replied with a smile. I looked back to Hotaru. "So, are you going to teach me to control Eolas?" I asked her.

"Yes." She said simply. _'We'll start with trying to reach your mind out to mine.'_ She told me without moving her lips, while sitting down on the ground beside me. "Think of a colour, don't tell me what it is. I won't reach into your head either. I will let you reach out to me." She stopped talking, so I quickly tried to think of a colour. I skipped through some of the obvious ones like pink, blue and orange. I realised that I associated those colours with certain people, which lead me to think about Itachi and how his eyes changed colour. Obsidian bled into a crimson red whenever he used the sharringan or when he lost control of his emotions. "Have you thought of a colour yet?" Hotaru asked me bringing me out of my thoughts. I nodded using the last colour from my thoughts. "Okay, I now want you to try and reach out your mind to mine and tell me what colour you're thinking of."

I closed my mind in concentration and tried to push my thoughts away from me in the direction in knew Hotaru was sitting. My face furrowed in concentration. My head started to hart from the excessive concentration. "It's not working is it?" I asked opening my eyes.

"It doesn't always happen first try, actually it's very rare that anyone completes it on their first go." She told me, possibly to make me feel better, but I also knew that she was telling the truth. "It might help to think of your mind like another muscle in your body. With exercise it will become stronger. Also remember that you have done this before, but only subconsciously." She told me. "I know that I always started the conversations but this is what I'm teaching you."

I nodded and tried again. Closing my eyes I pictured my mind as a muscle. I thought of Itachi's crimson red eyes, as this was the main point for my colour. I started to figuratively stretch the imaginary muscle. The muscle reached out to Hotaru with the picture of Itachi's sharingan eyes. To strengthen the picture of crimson red I thought of other objects which held the same colour. Deep crimson red lips painted with lipstick, bunches of crimson red roses, nail polish painted on a woman's fingers, blood dripping from a fresh wound. I finally went back to my original image as Hotaru started to giggle. "So that's why you're thinking of the colour crimson red." She told me. I opened my eyes to look at her. I had actually done it. "You're pictures were very vivid, most especially Itachi's sharingan eyes. Pictures can be an effective method of sending quick messages to the other. It is simple to send pictures made in the mind and photographic pictures of your surroundings, however the photographic pictures can become distorted if you're not careful. It can be better to give a live view rather than a memorised photo. We can try that out some other time but for now I want to try and have a conversation." She told me. "I want you to just have a conversation with me like you might normally." She told me I nodded, understanding what she wanted form me.

I closed my eyes, thinking that it might help. 'Okay this is kinda weird, but can you hear me?' I asked her via my mind. 'Hotaru?' I asked reaching my mind out to her in a similar way as I did with the pictures. 'It seems as if you can't hear me. I might as well ramble about something until you can.' I tried to reach out again. 'So I'm going to kill my dad when I next see him.' I head giggling from beside me and inside my head. My eyes opened at the sound. "You could hear me the whole time!" I accused her out loud.

'_Yes I could.'_ She said, still laughing slightly. I glared at her. _'You've gotten the hang of this very quickly.'_ She appraised me. _'I think that we could end our training session here, however I want us to talk like this to each other until the party tonight. Like I said before it's like a muscle and will get stronger the more you exercise it.'_ She told me.

'Okay I think that I should be able to bear with those rules.' I told her. 'You know what? You're right. It does get easier the more you do it. You can hear me at the moment right?' I asked, afraid that I had stopped talking to her.

She laughed again. _'No I can still hear you. Well we have to go get ready for the party tonight. The whole clan will be here this evening.'_ She told me chirpily, getting up from her seated position. She then pulled me up and dragged me back to her house.

_**A/N:**__ I think that this was the longest chapter so far! XD_


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

'Wow this is so pretty!' I exclaimed as we walked towards the main village square. The trees had lights wrapped in them, streamers and banners were stretched between trees and buildings. Small candles were scattered around the tables along with sakura petals and other flower heads.

'_I know what you mean.'_ She replied. Hotaru was wearing a simple indigo kimono with an intricate design in a dark blue and a black obi. I was wearing the kimono Hotaru had grabbed for me this morning. It was the simple white kimono with the falling sakura petals. It came with an obi in the same shade of pink as the sakura petals.

"Hotaru!" Someone shouted waving at us. I suddenly felt myself moving in the direction of person who had called to Hotaru. It seemed that she was dragging me towards a couple of people.

'_Time for those introductions I was talking about earlier.' _ She whispered in my head. "Hey guys, this is Sakura. She's spending a week with the clan, so that we can teach her our abilities." She informed them. "Sakura," She said, turning to me. "this is Midori, she's Sayuri-chan's daughter, which makes her the next in line to become the head of the clan." She said pointing to the girl in the green kimono detailed with yellow flowers and birds and a yellow obi. She had bright emerald green eyes, very similar to mine and very long dark red hair like her mum's. "And this is her older brother Kenta." He had the dark blue/purple eyes that most people within the clan tended to have and shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair, almost verging on a pinkish tinge.

"It's very nice to meet you." Kenta said bowing and kissing the tips of my fingers. I noticed that he was wearing a navy blue yukata.

"She's taken, baka!" Hotaru yelled. "And she's you're cousin." She carried on.

"So? Many people marry within the family..." He stopped talking once Midori had hit him upside the back on his head.

"Sorry about him. He has a big head, but only because he is the only male to have the ability to wield the elemental-jutsu at the moment." Midori said smiling, I warming up to her immediately. "It's so nice to meet you in person, after hearing so much from Hotaru-chan."

"May I gain everyone's attention!?" Sayuri-san shouted over the crowd gathered in the clearing. Everyone quickly fell silent to listen to the head of the clan. "Tonight is a celebration. Now I know you don't really want to listen to me," She earned a few chuckles, before she carried on. "So the buffet table is now open." She declared.

"Come on lets go get food, before the good stuff disappears." Midori suggested, not giving us time to decide. She quickly pulled both me and Hotaru towards the food table, before either of us could answer. Kenta followed closely behind. We piled up our plates and found an area to sit at the tables.

As the others conversed I decided to look at the other clan members to see if I could discern the main clan features. I saw many people with different shades of red hair, however there were a few with the same strawberry blond as Kenta. Even fewer people had the same pink hair as me. Most clan members had the dark blue/purple eyes, but a small majority had the emerald green eyes which Midori and I shared. Very few people didn't have these common features, I realised that Kenta's comment couldn't have been truer.

"Sakura?" A voice said pulling me away from my observations. "Have you found out what abilities you have?" Midori asked interested.

"Yeah, well we already knew that I had Eolas as me and Hotaru were sort of already using that connection. So we mainly worked on that today." I divulged to my two interested cousins. "We also found out that I have all five chakra types, so we were going to work on some of the basics of the Elemental jutsu later this week. We assumed that I would be able to use it since I already have perfect chakra control." I explained.

"Nice, so what other stuff could you do before?" Kenta asked me, clearly curious to my abilities as a ninja.

"Well I studied under Tsunade-sama. She taught me all of her arts. So I am very well versed in medical nin-jitsu and have what most people call 'super-strength'. Most of the techniques I've developed are based around these..."

"You made your own techniques?" Midori asked surprised. Kenta looked just as surprised, while Hotaru tried very hard to stifle her laughter.

"Well, I mean that I use senbon with my own make of sedative and poison. A few of my moves include small touches to certain places of the body which can stop either their movements or their chakra. That sort of thing really." I explained my comment in full.

"You must be a highly revered ninja within Konoha." Kenta commented

"Not really, there are loads of people who are better than me, namely my teammates. My sensei is Kakashi Hatake, known as the copy-ninja. Naruto is the Kubbi container, Sasuke is an Uchiha and Sai is a Root agent. I have to work double the amount they do just to keep up with them. Although I think things will change with these new jitsu's in my bag!" I said the last part evilly, rubbing my hands together slightly. Everyone burst into laughter from my last comment.

"Hiroshi-kun!" I heard exclaimed from near me. I tuned into that conversation, hearing my father's name. "I haven't seen you in a while. Why have you not come to visit us?" Sayuri asked, as I had now figured out.

"Sayuri-chan, I know it has been too long. Business has been busy recently." The man explained, I knew my father's voice very well. I wondered what he was doing here. I decided to listen in for a little longer before I went charging over there

"I'm glad you're here too Ai." Of course my mother was here as well. "And who's this you've brought with you?" She asked. Who would they have brought with them? I thought no-body knew about the clan.

"I am Uchiha, Itachi; Sakura's husband." The familiar deep velvety voice floated over to me.

"So you are the infamous man my brother married our Sakura off to." Sayuri mentioned before I was brought back to the people at our table.

"Sakura, go pummel your dad and glomp Itachi." Hotaru said softly. I blinked at her before whispering 'thank you' in her head as I left the table. "Bring him back here!" She shouted after me.

I stepped up behind the small group. "Why didn't you tell me about the clan?" I asked suddenly when there was a small brake in her conversation.

"Well, hello to you too Pumpkin." He said playfully, ruffling my hair. I slapped his hand away as the others chuckled at my expense. He answered my question when I glared at him. "Because we decided not to tell you until you were older." He said simply, sort of avoiding the question.

"Fine, don't tell me then." I said turning away, grabbing Itachi's hand in the process. "We'll just take our leave then." I dragged him over to the food table. "You must be hungry from the long journey." I told him

"Do you not want food?" He asked me concerned that I wasn't taking any food.

"I already have half a plate left and if I'm still hungry I'll just steal some from yours." I told him. "I'm sitting over there with my cousins." I pointed towards the area I had been sitting previously to find them watching us.

When we arrived I realised that there weren't any spare chairs so I sat Itachi on mine and sat on top of him. "How am I supposed to eat now?" He questioned.

"I'm going to feed you. Now I suppose I will have to do introductions because Hotaru seems incapable of speech over there." I commented. Hotaru laughed even harder than she had been before, if that was possible. "This is Midori, she's then next in line to become the head of the clan. And this is Kenta, her older brother." I told him first. "Midori-chan, Kenta-kun, this is Itachi, my husband."

"Sakura, you've already gone off with another, married as well. How can you have done this to me?" Kenta said theatrically, throwing a hand over his brow.

"Kenta!" Midori exclaimed, hitting him upside the head again. "Sorry about him. He's very big headed." She explained. I joined in with the giggling Hotaru was still deploying.

I picked up Itachi's plate and started to feed him once the giggle had passed. "I thought you were going to request a day off not ask to join me here." I stated, while asking why he was currently.

"I went to see Tsunade and she granted me today and tomorrow, allowing me to come here. She needs us to work extra hard to catch the traitor when you return." He said in between the bits of food I fed him.

"Okay, well I suppose you could watch me train tomorrow. Although it might not be interesting because for most of it I'll be talking silently to Hotaru-chan." I fed him more food.

"Actually we'll be doing a little more than just that, but I'm not going to tell you anything else it's a surprise." I pouted but became distracted as music started to play and some people got up to dance in the square space.

"Would you like to dance?" Itachi asked me. I looked at him before nodding. He picked me up and placed me on my feet. He then led me over to the dance floor and took my hands in his. He placed one on his shoulder while the other resided in his hand. He placed his free hand around my waist and started to twirl us in time to the music.

**OOO**

"Just stand there for now. I'll tell you what to do in a minute." Hotaru ordered Itachi, Midori and Kenta, placing them in the middle of the training field. Today we were using the medium training field today as we had a bigger group than normal. "Right Sakura," She said out loud, catching my attention. _'today I'll show you how effective this can be in battle.' _She told me silently. "I would like you to attack us. Midori-chan and Kenta-kun, please refrain from using your abilities. I'd like Sakura-chan to get the feel of fighting with the extra sense." They both nodded and prepared their fighting stances. "Those are the only rules for this spar." She declared, effectively starting the fight.

I leapt to the trees for some cover, narrowly missing the kunai which had been thrown at me. I saw Hotaru had done the same as me on the other side of the field. _'Now we need to formulate a plan. I suggest due to the positions of the other team that you punch the ground by the trees at your 9 o'clock. As they disperse I will throw kunai and paper bombs at them from my hiding position. You will have to engage openly with them, and I will join you quickly we can only plan till then really. I will shout more instructions to you later, you can add anything if you want to.' _She formulated a plan.

'_I can't see many problems with that. We should act now if we are to complete it and have the element of surprise.'_ I commented before I leapt out of the trees towards the spot Hotaru had indicated. As I jumped I built up my chakra into my fist. As I landed my chakra laden fist impacted with the ground. As predicted the other team whom had been planning verbally dispersed out into the open. They became disorientated as paper bombs and kunai were thrown at them. I pulled out some plain senbon, hiding them in my closed fists and took my chance to attack. I leapt towards Midori since she was the closest to me. She whipped around and blocked my incoming attack. My other hand swooped in for another attack to her neck. She grabbed this arm as well in a firm grip. I dropped the senbon in my hands, knowing that they were useless to me now. I twisted my arms so that I was also grasping her arms in a firm hold. I gathered chakra to my feet to plant them to the ground, while also using chakra to strengthen and enhance my muscles. I lifted her up and flung her over my back, she let go due to the shock and force, landing hard on her back. I twisted and quickly assessed that damaged I had done to her. She was very winded, but nothing was broken. She would be out of the spar for a little while. _'Behind you!' _Hotaru shouted. I quickly twisted to find Itachi standing behind me. He had been about to land his katana on me. I quickly ducked and weaved out of the way.

'_Back to back.' _I suggested as I moved towards Hotaru and her mini spar with Kenta. She acted accordingly to my suggestion as I saw Midori get up from the floor. Seems as though she wasn't as winded as I thought she had been. I bumped into the back of Hotaru as the others slowly circled us getting closer with every step they took. _'What now?' _I asked Hotaru, knowing that we needed some sort of a plan to get out of this.

'_Do you have any of those sedative dipped senbons on you?' _She asked me as I saw ideas running through her head.

'_Yes, I think that will be the best option here.' _ I replied. _'I will take out Midori since she will be the easiest to target, due to her injury. Then we should go back to our previous fights.' _I suggested quickly smoothing out the details of our plan.

'_Ok, wait for my signal. I want them to get a little closer before we act, giving them less time to react to us.' _She ordered. I did as she said knowing that she was right. I was fine taking orders from her now since I had been doing so for the last couple of days. _'Now!' _She bellowed in my mind, giving the signal.

My hand shot out to my weapons pouch. It automatically went to the specially lined pocket which contained pre-coated sedative senbons. I quickly and precisely threw them at Midori, while still keeping Itachi within my line of site. When they saw my movements the opposition jumped into action. Midori fell to the ground as soon as my senbon hit their marks. Pulling out a kunai, I turned my full attention to Itachi as Hotaru went to Kenta.

His katana clashed with my kunai as I brought it up to block his attack. He put more force into his attack and tried to use the advantage he had. I brought chakra to my arms to deal with the change in pressure. There was no way I would win this battle of strength when he had the larger weapon, even though I could see his stamina starting to waver a little. I came off the defensive and dogged the incoming attack. My hand shot out to his left shoulder, where there was an 'open' chakra point. I shot a small bit of my chakra into it rendering his left arm useless. He threw a couple of kunai over me. _'Duck!' _I yelled to Hotaru through Eolas as I realised he was aiming for her. I swung my legs round knocking him off his feet. I leapt on him and put a kunai to his throat. He quickly grabbed my arm and flipped me over. I lost the grip of my kunai when he twisted my arm. He quickly secured both of my hands in one of his before putting his hand around my neck. He gave a little squeeze to signal that I was now 'dead' in our spar. I glared at him. "I won that fight fair and square!" I accused him.

"I'm a ninja. We don't play fair if you hadn't noticed." He replied calmly. We heard some clapping from the other side of the field. We both looked up to see Sayuri watching our spar. Itachi then let go of me and help me up from the ground. I looked over and saw that Hotaru had won her spar with Kenta.

"Will Midori-chan be alright?" Sayuri asked, motioning towards her daughter lying on the ground unconscious. I walked over to her to asses her properly.

"She was heavily winded during our spar, but nothing is broken." I then took out the senbon sticking from her body and took her pulse. "She is currently asleep from my sedative and will most likely wake up in about 20 to 30 minutes." I said. I then put my hands to her chest and back to heal the winded areas. "There, now she won't wake up in any pain." I then looked up to a concerned Sayuri. She was obviously very protective of her children, like any mother should be.

"Thank you Sakura-chan." She whispered quietly. "Kenta-Kun, Hotaru-chan could you take Midori-chan up to Tomoko-baa-chan? And take Itachi up with you as well, she'll want to see him as well I think." They both nodded and followed her instructions. Itachi walked over to me and gave me a small kiss before following Kenta and Hotaru. Sayuri then turned to me before speaking again. "Now Sakura, I think you're ready for the basics."


	24. Chapter 24

_**A/N:** Warning there is a lovely lemon at the end of the chapter._

**Chapter 24**

"The simple activation of the jutsu has three hand seals; Boar, Monkey and Rabbit. There is also a final seal to use when dispelling the jutsu which is Dragon." Sayuri stated. "I want to see your raw ability with this jutsu before teaching you anything more. Please could you complete these hand seals?" She asked. I quickly followed her instructions, eager to learn a new ability which had been locked away, hidden inside of me.

I felt a rush of power running through my system. It seemed that I was drawing chakra from my surroundings. I felt a slight pull from around me and I naturally acted accordingly. I felt the wind rush around me bringing in some nearby clouds. Once the clouds arrived a light shower fell from them. A bolt of lightning struck the ground beside me. A small fire was created from the spot which had been struck. I found that I was able to control this fire and made an unusual shape with it before extinguishing it. The rain then also disappeared along with the clouds. The sun appeared again and I preformed the finishing hand seal. The weather conditions returned back to how they were before.

"Okay I want you to do the same again, but with a slight difference. Once you have completed the hand seals I want you to put your hand on the ground, although if you could avoid breaking it up, that would be preferable." She told me. I nodded in reply.

"I think I'll be able to control the amount of chakra I push out of me." I told her. I then completed the four hand seals again with the added action. What I felt was slightly different this time I felt like I was connected to all of the plants within the training field. To test this I made a flower at the edges of the trees bloom even brighter than it already was. I then saw a couple of boulders roll slightly on the other side of the field while the ground I was squatting on started to become quicksand. I lifted my hand quickly from the ground as I started falling. Sayuri quickly pulled me out of the newly made quicksand pool. I quickly preformed the Dragon seal to dispel it before it got out of control again.

"It seems that you have quite extensive power, however I will have to teach you how to control it properly." Sayuri-chan commented. "I'm going to give you a few more hand signs to help you control specific elements. Hold Tiger to help control fire or lightening, snake will help control earth and ram will help to control water or wind." She said showing me an example each time she gave a hand seal. "As you may have guessed, your chakra blends with the surrounding worlds chakra this means you can manipulate it easily and if necessary take some chakra to enhance your natural supplies. However I wouldn't advise taking too much or too often as you could end up killing it." She informed me. I nodded soaking it all in.

"So does this jitsu have a certain range or time limit?" I asked conserved with how long I might be able to use it in battle.

"Good question. There isn't really a time limit but if the jitsu is used for extremely long periods of time it can be physically and mentally exhausting to constantly control the environment around you. The same can happen if you use it many times in small bursts within a small time frame. As for a range it can vary from person to person. The largest known within our clan was a distance of 3 miles, whereas the smallest known was about half a mile. On average we can control our surrounding with a radius of about 1 or 1.5 miles. The jutsu's radius will move around with you keeping you at the centre of your jitsu at all times." She explained, answering my question in detail. "Now which element would you feel most comfortable trying to manipulate and control first?" She asked me.

"Um... I suppose earth, since I already know how to manipulate it a little." I replied, slightly unsure of myself.

"Okay, please perform the active hand seals and I will tell you what to do as we go along, so make sure you're concentrating." She instructed me. I followed them and performed the first three hand seals. "Okay, now I want you to let your hands fall apart." I looked at her strangely before eventually letting my hands break apart and fall to my sides. I realised that I could still feel everything just as sharply as when I held the seal. "Form the snake hand seal please." She asked politely. This time I complied without any hesitance. Suddenly I felt a rush run through me, making me gasp. I could feel every expanse of earth around me almost like it was an extra limb. I knew I could still feel the other elements around me but with this seal I felt more connected to Earth. Sayuri stayed quiet, allowing me to get used to this new feeling. "It feels amazing doesn't it." She more stated rather than asked me. I nodded my head in response, speechless. "Could you make one spike here?" She asked pointing to a patch of ground fairly close to me. I nodded a tried to comply with what she had asked of me.

I concentrated on the piece of land before closing my eyes when I felt as one with it. In my head I pictured a spike of earth rising out of the ground. Whilst picturing I felt the ground move with both my normal and extra senses. I opened my eyes and saw the patch of ground had more turned into a sort of podium with a few spikes protruding from it. My heart fell at the sight. I hadn't been able to do it.

"Well I didn't quiet expect that but you did make the ground rise and make spikes. Better than my first attempt at least." I looked towards her, expectant for the story which couldn't have been worse than my failure of an attempt. "I made small stumps appear from the ground all over the training field. You actually hit the right area and sort made some spikes. She chuckled at her memory and I couldn't help but join in. It did sound like a much worse attempt than me. "Do you want to try and retract it back into the ground then?" She said getting back to our task.

I nodded and preformed the seals I was becoming familiar with. This time I kept my eyes open so that I could watch what I was doing. Slowly I brought the spikes back into the raised rock before sort of pulling the earth back into the ground it had come from. I then preformed the Dragon hand seal and looked carefully to see that the only trace of my activity was a small dip in the ground.

"Well I think that was slightly better, right?" I asked hesitantly. Sayuri nodded, confirming my thoughts. "That's something quite different than normal jutsus." I commented.

"Yes, it is a different feeling from normal jitsus, but then our clan isn't very normal." She told me in reply. "We don't really have much time to practice today, however I'm going to encourage you to explore this jutsu on your own. I will train with you a little more again tomorrow, but after that I will you put into the hands of your cousins." She informed me. "At the end of the week I will send Hotaru back with you and Midori will also be in the village if you want to ask any questions. Now I expect you want to spend a little time with your husband. He should still be at the meeting house if you hurry back."

"Thank you so much." I said hugging her. She briefly hugged me back before I ran towards the meeting house.

**OOO**

I found Itachi waiting outside the meeting house with Hotaru and Kenta. It seemed that they were chatting, finding more about each other. "Hi, I have the rest of the day off." I commented as I stepped towards the group.

"Finally, you can take him off our hands now." Kenta complained. "We have work to do. See you later." He waved and sped off pulling a confused Hotaru behind him.

"Well now that we are finally alone, what would you suggest doing?" Itachi asked, pulling me closer to him.

"I can think of a few things." I said cryptically, fluttering lustful eyes at him while running my hands up and down his chest.

"And where do you suggest that we do these activities?" He asked, knowing exactly where my mind had gone.

"Well I've heard that some of the meeting rooms have beds, due to medical reasons you know." I murmured, pressing light kisses on his neck.

"And how do you suppose that we can make this a medical excuse?" He whispered softly in my ear before tugging it lightly.

I gasped slightly before replying. "Well I can feel your erection and I'm the nurse who's going to make it feel better." I replied dirtily. Before he could react I pulled him into the large building behind us and lead him to where I knew some of the medical rooms were. I dove into a room which looked empty and locked the door behind us.

I turned back around to find myself trapped between Itachi and the door. Itachi pressed against me and captured my lips in a passionate kiss. His tongue swept across my lips, making them part slightly. That was all the encouragement Itachi needed before he started to explore every inch of my mouth with his tongue.

His hand moved down my neck and stopped to rest just above my breast. He gently swiped his thumb over it before moulding his hand around it. He squeezed lightly, a small moan slipped from me as my core started to heat up. I pulled him closer deepening our kiss once more. I ran my hands down his chest, lifting the hem of his shirt up so that I could run my hands over his flesh. He groaned slightly when my fingers slipped over his nipples and so I did it again and again. I loved those sounds he made. Itachi was, surprisingly, a very vocal lover, as was I. This always meant that we would try to draw out as many sounds as possible from each other. However I think that he always won due to the fact that he would hardly ever give me the chance to try.

Itachi momentarily broke our kiss to remove my top. I quickly followed suit and made his disappear too. We were quickly back on each other, moving slowly towards the bed. Itachi twirled us and pushed me back onto the bed. He quickly removed my medic skirt and shorts before removing his trousers. "I see that you went commando today." I commented slyly.

He slowly climbed on top of me and put his mouth right next to my ear. "I always go commando when I know that there might me a chance to fuck you." I let out a loud moan at the thought. He then started to nibble on my ear making me gasp every time his tongue swiped across it. He slowly kissed his way down my neck, taking a small nibble here and there. Small moans escaped every time, making me breathless. He carried on down past my neck to lavish the exposed skin of my breasts.

His hands slipped behind my back as I arched. He quickly and expertly unclasped my red lacy bra. He slowly slid the straps down my arms. His lips moved back up my neck as he slowly released my small mounds. His mouth attached itself to one of my peaks, while his hand played with the other. This increased the amount of noise emitting from my vocal cords. Every so often he would swap sides so that each breast was given an equal amount of attention.

When he stopped, he placed careful kisses down my stomach and across the area just above my matching knickers. He slowly pulled them down, following it with kisses down one of my legs. I groaned in anticipation and frustration.

Once I was completely naked he slowly made his way back up the other leg. He skipped straight to my stomach and carried on kissing his way up my body. I tried to move him in a position which would abate some of my frustration but he trapped my wrists with his hands. He carried on leisurely up my body before passionately attacking my already bruised lips once again. I kissed him back with as much enthusiasm. Our bodies rubbed erotically against one another, making small moans and groans slip into the others mouth.

Itachi broke our kiss and gave me a small peck before he slid my legs open wider so that he could gain access to my private area. He bent his head down and started to suck on my clitoris. I almost screamed from the contact after waiting for so long to be touched. My hands instantly flew to his hair and gripped it tightly, pulling the band out and letting it flow loosely. Itachi licked, sucked, nibbled and groaned making a tuneful of sounds erupt from my lips. He moved his head slightly lower and grabbed a hold of my hips to keep them in place. He then moved his tongue in and out of my most sacred place, making me scream out in pleasure. I couldn't take the amount of pleasure that was building up inside of me and burst, screaming as my orgasm overtook my whole body. Itachi lapped up every single drop of juice which flowed out of me, lengthening the number of after ripples which shook through me.

Once I had gathered back my breath I pulled Itachi up to me for a lengthy kiss. I used my strength and turned him over so that I was on top. I slowly pushed him back down to the bed and kissed my way down his body. I then wrapped my lips over the head and drew circles around it with my tongue, drawing out hearty moans form his precious lips. I nibbled at the sides before engulfing him completely. I marginally moved my head up and down as my fingers played with his balls and puckered hole. His deep moans became breathless and louder.

I slipped away from him before he could climax and kissed him deeply as I sheathed him with my core. We groaned into each other as we began our final act of the play. I moved up and down slowly enjoying the feel of him inside me. I ran my hands across his chest, playing with the small amount of fine chest he owned.

Soon Itachi became tired of my slow and gentle pace and so switched our positions. He started to pound into me harder with a slow increasing speed. My moans became louder and higher in pitch with each thrust he made. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he started to hit me deeper and harder inside. Even with the fast pace he had set, he still hit my sweet spot accurately each time.

I felt my walls tighten around his pounding length as I climaxed for the second time, screaming out Itachi's name. He slowed up a little to draw out my orgasm and to feel my walls flex around him. I manipulated my muscles slightly to carry on flexing around him as he drove closer to orgasm, knowing that it would set him off the edge. Seconds later I heard my name falling from his velvet lips as he came down from his high.

We just lay and embraced each other as our breathing came back to normal, relishing in the post sex glow. We exchanged small kisses and thrusts, enjoying all the pleasurable after ripples.

After a few moments Itachi pulled out from me and sat up. "What should we do now?" He asked me.

I pulled him back down beside me. "Just lay here with me. I don't think anyone will miss us for a while longer." I told him quietly snuggling back into his embrace. "I love you."

"I love you too."

_**A/N: **As always please review! It will give me inspiration to carry on writing! :)_


	25. Author's Note

I should have put this up earlier (... much, much earlier), but all of my stories are on hiatus for a bit.

My life has been very busy and I have had massive writers block. Some of my stories I have lost the passion for, some I am debating on changing, while others are just being stubborn.

My studies are very important to me at the moment and I have to concentrate on them, so once all my exams are done I should be able to get back to writing and hopefully soon after that updating again.

I hope you stay and wait but it may be a while before I update. Hopefully I will be back soon! :)

_SazzyJacks_


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